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New Businesses and Civil Rights Both Require Legal Change.

Location data produced by modern technology like GPS and cell phones can today be accessed by law enforcement agents without probably cause and a warrant, but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has introduced legislation that would change that.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) this week welcomed U.S. Senator Mark Kirk (R- Ill.) as a cosponsor of the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act (GPS), making the joint announcement at a Retro Tech Fair sponsored by the Center for Democracy in Technology commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). The new Act would require law enforcement to get a warrant before accessing historical or real-time location data about an individual from a technology provider or device, except in cases of national security, theft or fraud.

It had already been law in California since 2002 for service providers experiencing a database breach to notify their customers when they suspect the security of their personal data may have been compromised. But for the last few years, there was a strange little controversy over just how businesses make those notifications. Isn't a post on the FAQ of the company Web site enough?

Up until last year, the official stance of then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was that notifying customers directly "would place additional unnecessary mandates on businesses without a corresponding consumer benefit." That stance changed when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill that Schwarzenegger had vetoed.

Two pieces of legislation of particular interest to the startup community continue to wind their way through Congress: Senator Lugar and Kerry's Startup Visa Act and Senator Dodd's Financial Reform bill.

We've written about both here before.

The United States Congress, which has been debating the issue of carried interest and capital gains tax for quite some time now, may be inching towards a solution as a vote is expected on the issue some time this week. As we've discusses as recently as last week, Congress, in an attempt to raise money, is considering hiking taxes on capital gains - the income a VC might make on a long-term investment with a startup. This week, as Congress nears a resolution, VCs have begun raising their voices against these tax increases.

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) announced Tuesday that it delivered letters signed by over 1,700 members of the entrepreneurial community to each U.S. Senator in hopes of raising awareness of potentially harmful legislation. The Senate is considering financial reforms that could eliminate capital gains tax incentives for venture capital carried interest, which the NVCA says could lead to a severe decline in VC investments.

Debate began today in the U.S. Senate on a bill designed to overhaul the financial industry. It's a piece of legislation that could have far-reaching consequences for venture capital investment, and in turn some argue, for technological innovation and economic growth. A response to the recent financial meltdowns and scandals, the 1,400-page bill seeks to regulate Wall Street and the financial industry more closely.

In the wake of the financial meltdown, a new set of financial regulations proposed by Senator Christopher Dodd aimed at plugging the "too big to fail" loopholes could have some negative side effects for the angel investment community. According to a report from the Seattle-based site TechFlash, Dodd's bill would require that angel investments be approved by the SEC, a process that could take as many as 120 days to complete.

Foreign startups with their sights set on targeting a U.S. market will be happy to note that as of this morning, Senator John Kerry and Senator Richard Lugar introduced the Startup Visa Act in Washington. In late December we covered the details of the legislation as well as comments from some of the act proponents including YCombinator's Paul Graham and Foundry Group's Brad Feld.

As more and more students choose online courses either as alternatives to the traditional college experience or as a supplement, a lot of colleges have started to worry about how to prevent these students from cheating on remotely administered exams. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the U.S. Congress, too, is concerned about this and has added language into a part of legislation renewing the Higher Education Act that encourages schools to fight cheating more effectively.