Congress extends Internet tax ban News
Congress extends Internet tax ban

[JURIST] By a voice vote Friday, the US House of Representatives passed a Senate bill that reinstates until 2007 a ban on all state and local taxes aimed at monthly usage fees paid by customers to Internet service providers. President Bush is expected to sign the bill. While opponents argued that the ban's expiration in 2003 would allow states to regain tax revenue lost by customers substituting Internet use for telephones and postal mail, supporters warned that the imposition of state taxes might thwart the growth of the Internet. As proposed legislation to make the ban permanent never solidified, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said of the compromise, "Without any action by this Congress…the Internet economy and its participants are more vulnerable, even if we must act on a weaker bill…" Reuters has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

No lynchings reported in US for first time

On December 30, 1952, the Tuskegee Institute reported that 1952 was the first year of no lynchings of African Americans in the United States in the 71 years it had kept records. Learn more about lynching and listen to Billie Holiday's jazz recording of the 1938 protest song Strange Fruit.

USSR established

On December 30, 1922, representatives of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and the Transcaucus approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). During World War II, the USSR would also annex Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Moldova. Learn more about the history of the USSR from the BBC.