2:00 a.m. March 30, 2002 PST WASHINGTON — Sen. Patrick Leahy says a controversial proposal to embed copy protection in electronics gear will not become law this year.

Since Leahy is the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, his opposition instantly boosts the difficulty Hollywood studios will encounter in their attempts to enact sweeping copyright legislation. [more from Wired]

More on the (non) availability of broadband in rural areas

One of the banes of my life is the fact that I live in a lovely village which is only three miles from Cambridge and yet might as well be on Mars as far as BT broadband access is concerned. Interesting then to find that a software engineer living in a village outside Bedford has been experiencing the same frustration. This BBC report outlines his heroic efforts to find someone in BT who could give him an intelligent answer to his question. The answer, of course, was no.