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It’s going to be tough for “Aaron’s Law” to become, well, a law.

There’s been plenty of Washington soul-searching following the death of Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old Internet entrepreneur who spent nearly two years battling potential imprisonment on computer fraud charges. But a congressional campaign to rewrite the law and spare others from a similar legal struggle isn’t going to be an easy climb. “To be successful, that effort will likely take substantial time and require sustained and intense support from all of you,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), one of the principal backers, wrote in a post to users of Reddit, which Swartz co-founded. Rep Lofgren said success would require “a push that will need to exceed” even what Internet activists did to halt the Stop Online Piracy Act. Despite some recent momentum, there’s not much clamor for change coming from the White House — and as expected, the Justice Department, which once tried to expand the penalties of the so-called Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, has been silent. While there’s a new reform push on Capitol Hill backed by a few powerful members, the key committees with jurisdiction have other plans in mind — and their agendas are packed with immigration reform and gun control. More than that, Congress actually has been fond of stronger punishments for some offenders.

Once again, those on the East Coast are getting a new kind of message on their cellphones alerting them to severe weather. As was the case with Hurricane Sandy, local officials are using a relatively new wireless alert system to blast messages to those in the area where the storm is headed.

Though similar to a text message, the alerts are actually a special kind of notification that the Federal Communications Commission has enabled for carriers that choose to participate. It’s a modern-day update to the emergency alert system that has been used for decades on broadcast television and radio. It allows local, state and federal officials to send alerts about anything from severe weather to a terrorist attack. Though similar to text messages, the emergency alerts are actually shorter (a maximum of 90 characters) and come with a special alert tone designed to distinguish them from other messages. According to the guidelines, the messages are to be used only for presidential alerts, Amber alerts or imminent threats.

A bipartisan trio of lawmakers have reintroduced legislation that would prohibit employers from asking for their workers' passwords to Facebook or other online accounts.

Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Michael Grimm (R-NY) offered the Social Networking Online Protection Act. The legislation, which they had previously introduced in the last Congress, would make it illegal for employers to demand passwords or other information to access online accounts of their employees or people applying for jobs. The restriction would also apply to schools and universities demanding passwords from students or applicants. California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey enacted similar protections last year.

Federal Communications Commission member Ajit Pai said that if the FCC proceeds to count some joint sales agreements (JSAs) toward local TV station ownership caps, it would be an "unforced error," and that the commission must treat broadband as a complement, not replacement, for broadcast.

Commissioner Pai wants the FCC to loosen the local ownership rules, so said he found it "amazing" that the proposal currently on the table would tighten them by adding the JSAs and possibly shared-service agreements. Those proposals remain on the table rather than in the outbox, however, as the FCC continues to vet comments from parties citing potential impact of deregulation on minority and women ownership. The item has yet to be voted and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski appears in no hurry to push a vote. Commissioner Pai pointed to a JSA between two stations in his home state of Kansas where a Univision affiliate, an Entravision station, was able to create the only Spanish-language newscast in the state, and another in Missouri between Nexstar and Mission that allowed for expanded news coverage, he said. He said JSAs were particularly important for smaller markets -- the ones where they would most likely be prevented by a new FCC rule -- where station revenue is a fraction of that in larger markets.