Morning Media Summary

Tech:

Air Force Blocks Media Sites:
“The U.S. Air Force is blocking its personnel from using work computers to view the websites of the New York Times and other major publications that have posted classified diplomatic cables, people familiar with the matter said.”

Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment:
“In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Closely tracking arguments made by EFF in its amicus brief, the court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.”

Why attackers can’t take down Amazon.com:
“The website-attacking group “Anonymous” tried and failed to take down Amazon.com on Thursday. The group’s vengeance horde quickly found out something techies have known for years: Amazon, which has built one of the world’s most invincible websites, is almost impossible to crash.”

FCC’s “Open Internet” proposal heading for defeat?:
“Conservatives have kept a close eye on Julius Genachowski, chair of the FCC, especially after his first attempt to regulate the Internet by regulatory decree got slapped down by Congress. Now it looks like the chastened Genachowski has lost the Left, too. His scaled-down “Open Internet” proposal had no chance of winning support from the conservatives on the FCC board, and his Net Neutrality allies are urging the Democrats on the panel to oppose it as well:”

‘Stuxnet virus set back Iran’s nuclear program by 2 years’:
“The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years, a top German computer consultant who was one of the first experts to analyze the program’s code told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.”

Mark Zuckerberg is Person of the Year:
“For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME’s 2010 Person of the Year.”

Global Warming / Environment / Energy:

The U.S. Should Halt All Funding For U.N.’s ‘Global Warming’ Scam:
“The global warming prophets and propagandists, who enjoy living in style on other people’s money, gathered last month in the plush resort of Cancun, Mexico, where January temperatures usually hover around 80 degrees. God must have a sense of humor because Cancun was hit by its coldest temperature in a hundred years.”

Insurance / Gambling:

Budget bill might be final option in fading effort to legalize online poker:
“The fate of a proposed legalization of online poker is a quiet ongoing debate on Capitol Hill, but since it’s sparking full-throated passions around Nevada, we thought it would be a good idea to parse through exactly what’s going on.”

Health / Safety:

Doctors Claim HIV-Positive Man Cured by Stem Cell Transplant:
“There’s an estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, and now doctors believe one of them may have been cured of the virus after receiving a stem cell transplant in 2007, the medical journal Blood reported.”

Economics:

Sidestepping the U.S. Dollar, a Russian Exchange Will Swap Rubles and Renminbi:
“Russia and China are poised to take a small but symbolic step in their expanding economic relationship, a move that in the long term could make the dollar less relevant to business between the two nations.”

Congress’ Job Approval Rating Worst in Gallup History:
“Americans’ assessment of Congress has hit a new low, with 13% saying they approve of the way Congress is handling its job. The 83% disapproval rating is also the worst Gallup has measured in more than 30 years of tracking congressional job performance.”

Democrats’ budget bill: $1.1 trillion; 1,900 pages:
“Defying the political odds, Senate Democrats rolled out a year-end, governmentwide spending bill Tuesday that cuts more than $26 billion from President Barack Obama’s 2011 requests even as it holds firm to thousands of the appropriations earmarks so adamantly opposed by critics of Congress.”

Legal:

Breaking News on EFF Victory: Appeals Court Holds that Email Privacy Protected by Fourth Amendment:
“In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Closely tracking arguments made by EFF in its amicus brief, the court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.”

Chicago’s ban on gun ranges challenged in court:
“When the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago over the summer that the right to bear arms does apply to the states, the victory’s sweetness for conservatives was short-lived. Almost immediately, gun-rights advocates braced themselves for more battles against the city’s many regulatory hurdles and licensing schemes.”

Much of Obama’s agenda in hands of courts:
“From air quality to immigration, much of President Obama’s domestic agenda is tangled up in the courts, where judges rather than Congress will decide the fate of his policies. ”

First-Ever Settlement Against Smokeless Tobacco Maker for Wrongful Death:
“The country’s largest maker of smokeless tobacco has reached a $5 million settlement after being sued by the family of a 42-year-old man who died of mouth cancer, The Wall Street Journal reported Dec. 8.”

Labor:

AFL-CIO, SEIU, Sierra Club and others call for filibuster reform:
“One thing you’re seeing today that you weren’t see a few years ago is that Senate reform is now a priority of what we might call “the institutional left.” Consider this letter (pdf), which is signed by the Communication Workers of America, the United Steelworkers, the Sierra Club, SEIU, Common Cause, DailyKos, the AFL-CIO and eight other left-leaning heavy-hitters and asks “Senators to move forward with reforms consistent with these eight principles”:”

Transportation/ Land Use:

Columbia Eminent Domain Case Will Not Be Heard:
“So the Supreme Court will not hear the eminent domain case involving Columbia University, which finagled the state into seizing local land and transferring it to the school. That means that the landowners who don’t want to sell have no recourse. Worse, it reinforces the precedent of Kelo–that the government can take land and transfer it to private actors even when there’s only a trivial and dubious public gain involved.”

Group recommends $2M for Rochester high-speed rail:
“A proposed high-speed rail line linking Rochester and the Twin Cities has gotten a boost.”