CWmike writes "US Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) told Microsoft this week that US citizens should get priority over H-1B visa holders as the software vendor moves forward on its plan to cut 5,000 jobs. 'These work visa programs were never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company cuts jobs during an economic downturn,' Grassley wrote in a letter sent Thursday to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The letter asked Microsoft to detail the types of jobs that will be eliminated and how those cuts will affect the company's H-1B workers." Reader theodp adds, "On Friday, Microsoft coincidentally announced it would postpone construction of a planned $500 million data center in Grassley's home state of Iowa, although work on data centers in Chicago and Dublin will continue."

The Register noticed that a senior US Department of Homeland Security official has floated the idea of requiring citizens to produce federally compliant identification before purchasing some over-the-counter medicines — specifically, pseudophedrine. The federal ID standard spelled out by the REAL ID act has been sold as applying only to air travel and entry to federal buildings and nuclear facilities. A blogger on the Center for Democracy and Technology site said, "[The] suggested mission creep pushes the REAL ID program farther down the slippery slope toward a true national ID card." Speaking of federal buildings, CNet has a state-by-state enumeration of what will happen on May 11, when REAL ID comes into effect, to citizens who attempt to enter, say, the Washington DC visitors bureau.

An anonymous reader writes "Google has issued a statement on the Inside AdWords Blog. Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word 'precedent' in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team to get their point across." From the post: "Being rather proud of AdWords as a means to effectively advertise one's products or services, it seems natural to use it ourselves. Since it's a common practice across the industry for companies to promote their own products and services through their own web presence, there is much precedent to do this. It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser. Likewise, we use the very same tools and account interface."