Civil unions clear Illinois legislature - CNN

The bill that passed Wednesday in Illinois will give same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples.The bill is expected to be signed by the governorIt gives heterosexual and same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couplesThe measure addresses wills, financial assets and end-of-life decisions

(CNN) -- Illinois' state Senate approved legislation Wednesday that will give same-sex couples many of the same rights as married couples.

The Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act defines "civil union" as a legal relationship between two people of either the same or opposite sex.

According to the language of the bill, it will provide "adequate procedures for the certification and registration of a civil union and provide persons entering into a civil union with the obligations, responsibilities, protections, and benefits afforded or recognized by the law of Illinois to spouses."

Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, pledged in his recent re-election campaign to sign the bill.

The state House approved the measure Tuesday.

The legislation deals with the rights of couples regarding wills, shared financial assets, end-of-life decisions and visitation of a critically ill partner.

CNN's Kara Devlin and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

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Amazon bans WikiLeaks from using its servers - Digitaltrends.com

WikiLeaks, the notorious whistleblower website, has been kicked off Amazon.com’s U.S. servers. This comes on the heels of the organization moving its operations only a day ago.

WikiLeaks has been the center of controversy this week due to having released more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables onto the internet and into the hands of select news organizations. Many of the cables are sensitive in nature and describe U.S. relations and efforts with countries such as Russia, South Korea and Pakistan.

As can be imagined, the U.S. government is not too happy about the release of these confidential documents and has been putting a lot of pressure against the website. This news comes after U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the House Security Committee, questioned Amazon.com.

“I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on Wikileaks’ previous publication of classified material. The company’s decision to cut off WikiLeaks now is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material,” notes Lieberman.

Since the release of these cables, WikiLeaks has been under the target of of multiple distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, leaving the site crippled. It moved from its Swedish servers to Amazon Web Services yesterday. The site promptly received more DDoS attacks, and have been booted off Amazon and are not back on its Swedish servers.

It seems likely that Amazon dropped WikiLeaks because of pressure from the U.S. government, though no official reason has been given.

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Xbox modding trial on hold after judge berates prosecution - msnbc.com

By Winda Benedetti

The criminal trial against a man accused of modifying, or "modding" Xbox game machines was put on hold Wednesday after the federal judge overseeing the case berated the prosecution and questioned their use of witnesses who may have, themselves, broken the law.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez told the prosecuting attorneys that he had “serious concerns about the government’s case,” according to a report from Wired.

As we reported earlier, opening statements were scheduled to begin Wednesday morning in the criminal trial of 28-year-old Matthew Crippen of Los Angeles. Crippen — who is accused of modifying Microsoft-made Xbox 360 game consoles for money so the machines could play pirated games and other content — faces time in prison if convicted. (msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Authorities arrested Crippen last year on accusations that he violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He was ultimately charged with two counts of trying to circumvent anti-piracy measures. This trial marks the first time a federal prosecution for console-modding has reached a jury trial.

Wired writer David Kravets has been in the courtroom and reports:

Among the judge’s host of complaints against the government was his alarm that prosecutors would put on two witnesses who may have broken the law.

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

“Maybe two of the four government witnesses committed crimes,” the judge said from the bench. “I think it is relevant and the jury is going to hear about it — both crimes.”

Wired reports that opening arguments were put on hold and, after the berating was over, federal prosecutors asked for a recess to determine whether they would offer the defendant a deal, seek dismissal of the case or move forward with it.

Fore related stories, check out:
Kinect sex – what's the holdup?
With Kinect controller, hackers take liberties
Kinect vs. Move vs. Wii: Fight!

Winda Benedetti writes the Citizen Gamer column for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter.

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