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Umm, I've been through Chapter 7 and I followed the bankruptcy bill pretty closely. I don't recall Obama voting for it. In fact, this and this both say that he voted "nay" on the bill. Ironically enough Hillary managed to miss the vote, though in her defense, I think that was around the time that Bill was having his heart surgery.

How do you figure that? The primary "enforcement" mechanism behind the bankruptcy "reform" bill is the means test that can force you into a Chapter 13 instead of a Chapter 7. Chapter 13 actually makes it easier to keep your home. Generally speaking you can't keep your home at all under a Chapter 7 if you are behind on the payments -- and if you are current then you have to look at the amount of equity vs your states exemptions. Bottom line: It's much harder to keep your home under a Chapter 7 then a Chapter 13.

Re: your sig. Ron Paul on Martin Luther King: "a world-class adulterer" who "seduced underage girls and boys" and "replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration"
Ron Paul on the closet: "I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities."
Ron Paul on San Francisco gays: "[T]hese men don't really see a reason to live past their fifties. They are not married, they have no children, and their lives are centered on new sexual partners." Also, "they enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."
Ron Paul on protecting oneself against 'urban youth' "If you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example)."

Also:
Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy, pull out of the UN, end birthright citizenship, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan.

Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he's against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories.

Hey, if it works the U.S. government, certainly it works for university administrations, right? We can just use horrible, horrible tragedies to scare everyone into compliance! Nobody should disagree, and if you do, you're a terrorist! Or a school shooter! In fact, that's exactly what H.R. 1955 is all about. Disagree with the government? You go to Gitmo. It's already passed the House, so write your Senator!

With credit to Pope Guilty of the SA forums: Ron Paul wants to define life as starting at conception, build a fence along the US-Mexico border, prevent the Supreme Court from hearing Establishment Clause cases or the right to privacy (which would bar atheists from holding office in Texas, prevent the striking down of antisodomy laws, prevent the government from spending any money to enforce its decisions, among many other things), pull out of the UN, end birthright citizenship, and abolish the Federal Reserve in order to put America back on the gold standard. He was also the sole vote against divesting US federal government investments in corporations doing business with the genocidal government of the Sudan. Oh, and he believes that the Left is waging a war on religion and Christmas, he's against gay marriage, is against the popular vote, wants the estate tax repealed, is STILL making racist remarks, and believes in New World Order conspiracy theories. He also said: "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be" and "Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action."

Here is the text itself (at the end of the safe ports act). It says nothing about "offshore" transfers. It applies to transfers for all instra-state illegal gambling. It doesn't specify what is illegal, it simply defers to current law.

It's a sad sad day in America that the truth of the 5th ammendment and the constitution itself is even called into question in this way. Thanks to the judge who supported the constitution, unfortunately there are laws shredding it up as we read this news.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955

Welcome to the police state.

Has he been getting letters from his voters / constituents that the DMCA needs to be tougher?

"The representative from Hollywood" isn't just hyperbole. He represents the 28th congressional district in California, which includes parts of Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. People in the film industry are his constituents.

Reportedly, the bill you link to bears little resemblance to what was voted on.

H.R. 3791: SAFE Act of 2007

This page contains the full text of the bill, it's status (currently passed house and not voted on in senate), and each representative's vote.

S. 1257, the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007, came 3 senate votes short of unconstitutionally granting DC full representation in the house. I'm glad to know anonymous cowards understand the Constitution better than cosponsors Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, or Barack Obama.

Prohibits the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism from violating the constitutional and civil rights, and civil liberties, of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.

Holy crap, that title and summary is misleading.

I just read the bill (linky, it's not that long), and the Internet is mentioned only once:

The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

That's it, nothing else. The bill's purpose is to establish a committee to study violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism, and to assist federal officials in training and education efforts to prevent such things.

If you disagree with spending tax dollars to do that, then I don't have a problem with that. If the committee comes up with some outlandish plan to regulate the Internet as a result of their research, then I agree we need to get worked up about it. But the bill does not say that the Internet is a "terrorist threat," and it sure as hell does not define the Internet as a "terrorist tool that Congress needs to develop and implement methods to combat."

...until I found out about his opinion regarding the Darfur genocide (watch this excellent Frontline special online if you have no clue what is happening over there).

While I can understand his not wanting to send troops over there to stop the government from slaughtering its own people, I can not understand his voting against the Divestment Act of 2007 (passed 418-1), which intended "to require the identification of companies that conduct business operations in Sudan, [and] to prohibit United States Government contracts with such companies".

Basically, the act says that if a company is directly helping the Sudanese government act out the genocide of their own people, the US government would not sign a contract with that country.

When I read Paul's argument, I was even more appalled. Not only did he ignore the currently-known results of divesting from Sudan (in other words, it's working!), he also had the gall to (purposely?) confuse the Darfur genocide with the completely separate North-South civil war. So his basic argument was "we shouldn't be getting involved with other countries' civil wars"

This bill says nothing about encryption. At most, there is a bullet-point in the findings section (899-B, item 3) that suggests how the internet is used may be part of the study.

On the other hand, in about 18 months after passing this bill, the study is supposed result in a report. Everyone set their alarms - we'll have to see what the study says about privacy and encryption.

FYI: This bill is known as S.1959 in the Senate.

If this bill passes, you won't be able to use OTR without being carted off. Call your senator and tell them to vote NO.

Here ya go.

here

Also note the status of the bill, it has just been introduced.

Who are you quoting? I just read the bill, and the writeup you cite looks like a load of crap.

This is just academic research.

Could you cite the relevant portion of the bill regarding thought crime? I can't seem to find it.

Leahy did release the PR blurb on it, but the full text is kept secret of course (Dems want to get paid too)

Track the bill here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2168

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109 -3902

Introduced 9/14/2006, no action since. This isn't news. This is History.

Bah. Screwed up my hyperlink somehow... Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006

"This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise bills before they go to general debate. The majority of bills never make it out of committee."

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110 -704

You can read the full text of the resolution if you like.

What I find interesting is that a bunch of the "Whereas" statements are mostly about how teh evil children are doing things behind their parents' backs and thus we need a government resolution to combat this. Heh. Raise your hand if you were a kid and never did anything behind your parents' backs.

Now imagine if the supreme court were not permitted to safeguard your "life, liberty or property" because Ron Paul's HR 4379 had explicitly forbidden it in matters of "sexual practices, orientation, or reproduction".

This means that states can now legislate against contraception, abortion and consensual sex. It means that the definition of "privacy" as seen by the courts under the fifth and fourteenth amendements is valid to give you the right to "to marry, establish a home and bring up children", but not to decide how and when to conceive those children.

In short, Ron Paul is a very strange and impractical obstetrician and an even stranger kind of politician. I certainly wouldn't vote for him.

It would seem that since Senator Kennedy of Massachussettes is the sponsor of the bill this has something to do with the Mooninite fallout. IANAL but I still didn't read anything much that would put the guerilla marketing company in too much extra trouble. The thing that stands out to me is that the amended version still says

`(1) IN GENERAL- Whoever engages in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute an offense listed under subsection (a)(1) is liable in a civil action to any party incurring expenses incident to any emergency or investigative response to that conduct, for those expenses.

The key I think is in the first part of the sentence that says "...with intent to convey false or misleading information...". I guess a case could be made that their intent was to convey false or misleading information by not providing any information but it seems like that is stretching it.

For the links I used:
the proposed amendment and its full text
Unamended Section 1038 of Title 18 of the US Code
section 2332b since the amendment adds a reference to section 2332b(g)(5)(B) of this title ( Title 18 )

It would seem that since Senator Kennedy of Massachussettes is the sponsor of the bill this has something to do with the Mooninite fallout. IANAL but I still didn't read anything much that would put the guerilla marketing company in too much extra trouble. The thing that stands out to me is that the amended version still says

`(1) IN GENERAL- Whoever engages in any conduct with intent to convey false or misleading information under circumstances where such information may reasonably be believed and where such information indicates that an activity has taken, is taking, or will take place that would constitute an offense listed under subsection (a)(1) is liable in a civil action to any party incurring expenses incident to any emergency or investigative response to that conduct, for those expenses.

The key I think is in the first part of the sentence that says "...with intent to convey false or misleading information...". I guess a case could be made that their intent was to convey false or misleading information by not providing any information but it seems like that is stretching it.

For the links I used:
the proposed amendment and its full text
Unamended Section 1038 of Title 18 of the US Code
section 2332b since the amendment adds a reference to section 2332b(g)(5)(B) of this title ( Title 18 )

"parse it as written" doesn't help resolve the legitimate linguistic ambiguity

There is no "legitimate linguistic ambiguity." Here's the 13th:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Now here it is again, but put in mundane terms so your mind won't try to confuse you, and you can stop trying to confuse everyone else:

Neither jam nor jelly, except as a reward for chores the child shall have been confirmed to have completed, shall be applied to bread within this household, or at grandma's.

You going to argue jam cannot be used as a reward? Of course not. It's plain English. Interpreting it any other way than the obvious way is the act of an illiterate, or a sophist.

Now, it may well be that the current crop of puppet courts and their legions of tame shysters has decreed that the 13th doesn't mean what it clearly says. That's not a good thing, as we see with the inversion of the commerce clause. It ought to be interpreted as written, thrown the hell out, and replaced with whatever they think it means, if indeed society wants it to mean what they're trying to say it means.

Right now, it means they own you. It means they can do anything they want with you, and by George, that's pretty much how they behave, so again, whatever the shysters are saying is pretty bloody irrelevant in fact as well.

Name me one thing you can do with property that the government can't do with a convicted criminal in prison. They can kill you, or have you killed, that is, dispose of you, that happens all the time. They can move you from here to there, essentially handing you off to another slaveholder or institution full of them, and they can make such moves based on monetary gain. They can trade your warm body for another. They can release you early, if you behave. They can make you do any task, either directly, or indirectly by taking privileges from your fellow inmates, who will force you to comply. They can beat you or have you beaten. They completely control your meals, your medical care (or lack of it) your communications, your ability to see your family, your sex life, they eliminate your political self entirely, you are forced to live in horrible conditions, which can be made more horrible at any time at their whim, they control your reading materials and are just as likely to fill your hovel with propaganda such as religious tripe as they are not. They can keep you beyond your sentence. Forever, if they so decide. They can (and do) take away your children. They can put you on a public list of those to watch out for. They can ensure you're deprived of the right to carry arms. They can see to it that you are mutilated. They can, and do, take your property. They've even taken the trouble to make sure that some people cannot ever find a home, even if they were released. Whipping? Sure, you can be whipped. You can be beaten to death, or all manner of other mistreatments that don't quite get you there. Your life isn't worth a plugged nickel to them. Is your hang-up with the fact that it doesn't matter what color your skin is? I assure you, that's no factor in slavery. Finally, as to treatment in general, there were many slaves in the South who were treated better overall as compared to our prisoners, and very few who were treated worse.

also, i'm curious about this "half-million dollar fine for a curse word" claim. cite?

Here's one for $357,500.00, here's the legislation for the $500,000 fines, already through the house, the senate is next ...and you should read

Can you see what compiler was used to turn source into binary? Can you verify that published source/binaries are the same as what's inside the machine in front of you? Can you verify that the hardware is the same as what the software is expected to run on? Can you verify that the hardware works as intended (like, no memory errors etc)? I expect that for most (or all) of these questions, the answer will be: no, not really.

Actually the answer is, in general, yes. The software vendors must turn over "source code, object code, and executable representation of the voting system software for use in an election" (from the bill). And where the answer is no (hardware) it will be tested by NIST. I have dealt with the NIST and they are nothing if not AR.

For once, I have read a technology bill that actually make sense and is well written. What will happen to it in committee and beyond is any body's guess, but as it stands right now, this is a good bill.

As far as your complaints about a paper trail, the point of the paper trail is to have a physical back-up in case of a dispute. In general, the electronic vote is what will be considered. However, at least one precinct per county (plus any disputes) will be audited at random with the results made public. This means that both have their place, the electronic voting machines for easier voter use and verification (the voter has to check the paper ballot and make sure its accurate), and the paper trail, mixed with auditing, to make sure those results are accurate. If this piece of legislation goes through, it will remove the 'hanging chad' issues we saw in Florida, while at the same time giving the people the ability to make sure that their votes don't just go into a black box with the hope that it will come out the same on the other side.

Take a look at govtrack.us, which parses the Congressional Record into a nice RSS feed by issue, bill, or congressperson. It'd still be nice if Congress provided such a service themselves.

In order to protect law enforcement, certainly.

Like when the original restrictions were allowed to sunset and we were assured by Millions of Moms that we'd be awash in ruthless killing machines. We have to do something to protect our kind hearted, well intentioned, peace loving peace officers, whether from violence thirsty lunatics with sandbagged machine gun nests or from speed gun toting stalker weirdo suburbanite couples. These people, hell bent on their vigilante campaigns against docile doe eyed public servants, have to be stopped.

It's also available at GovTrack, which also allows for the tracking of the bill.

I challenge anyone to point out where, specifically the bill would have had any impact on free speech.
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in the landmark decision, Schenk v. U.S. (1919) that "a restriction is legitimate only if the speech in question poses a 'clear and present danger.'" Where is it? If that provision had passed, paid astroturfers would have to register with the gov't, which as the ACLU says, would "have a chilling effect upon free speech." But I guess that the ACLU lawyers and Oliver Wendell Holmes aren't quite the Constitutional scholars that your are.

You quote a section of the bill that prohibits imprisoning people for more than ten years (but doesn't say for what)
See Section 222. But if you had really wanted to know instead of just trying not to be wrong, I guess you could have Googled for it

You then say it's no wonder lots of people were against it
And?

And from this (and nothing else, that I can see) you conclude "it *is* restricting political speech"
Yeah, we wouldn't want to take the opinion of experts over yours. But anyway, what more do you want? The gov't would be placing restrictions, with possible jail time for not "having your papers in order" before engaging in certain types of political speech. That does not fit the definition of "free" (meaning unrestricted) that we normally apply to speech. The "restriction" is that you have to register or go to jail. You may not have a problem with that, but I do.

The word is "non sequitur" and you don't know how to apply it any more than you know how to spell it. Have you never heard the term "legal opinion?" In other words, current opinions and previous expert opinions have weight in a court of law. Since we are talking about a legal matter that is less than explicit (like abortion, the right to privacy, separation of Church and State) what else would we go on?

As a fellow Libertarian, do you see government having any role is making sure that the operators of gambling establishments are running an honest game? Or that they disclose the house's "take" on things like slot machines? Should the revenue from casinos be taxed?

Especially on the Internet, where there is no physical place of business, and all of the win/lose decisions are being made by computer code, the potential for fraud is enormous. (where is the cry for a paper audit trail because we can't trust the software?)

When someone claims a casino stole their money, is their any role for the government to get involved in the dispute? If the government had no jursidiction over the casino, it lacks the information to know what happened and why. Even if there are laws, a government has no jurisdiction outside of its borders.

If the government doesn't regulate an activity up front, yet people demand that it solve the problems the lack of regulation has created - then we wind up where we are now... Most people do seem to want government to "protect" them, even at the cost of giving up their personal freedoms. This is what governments do (see: State of Fear, Michael Chricton 2004)

In summary, it looks like the money funnelled through Jack Abramoff and other lobbyists paid off.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109 -4411

Note that this Bill passed the House by 317-93 (R 200-17, D 115-76, I 1-0)

All 5 representatives from Connecticut (home of Foxwood Casino) voted Yes.

(4) Although it is essential that the President
12 have all necessary means to protect us against our
13 enemies, it is equally essential that, in doing so, the
14 President does not compromise the very civil lib
15 erties that the President seeks to safeguard. As Jus
16 tice Hugo Black observed, ''The President's power,
17 if any, to issue [an] order must stem either from an
18 Act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.''.
19 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S.
20 579, 585 (1952) (opinion by Black, J.).
21 (5) In 2004, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor ex
22 plained in her plurality opinion for the Supreme
23 Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld: ''We have long since
24 made clear that a state of war is not a blank check
25 for the President when it comes to the rights of the

1 Nation's citizens. Youngstown Sheet & Tube, 343
2 U.S., at 587, 72 S.Ct. 863. Whatever power the
3 United States Constitution envisions for the Execu
4 tive in its exchanges with other nations or with
5 enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most as
6 suredly envisions a role for all three branches when
7 individual liberties are at stake.''. Hamdi v. Rums
8 feld, 542 U.S. 507, 536 (2004) (citations omitted).

It's a touch ironic that the secret hold issue was taken up back in March with the Wyden-Grassley amendment to prohibit secret holds (SA 2944), which passed with a Yea-Nay vote of 84-13. It was an amendment to S.2349, Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006.

You can read more about reasonable suspicion here. Disturbingly:

The Supreme Court held in Earls vs. Board of Education of Tecumseh Public School District (2002) that random drug testing was `reasonable' and did not violate the Fourth Amendment. The Court also held schools served as `guardian and tutor', could exercise `greater control than those for adults' and had `important interests' in the health and safety of students. The Court finally held that schools did not need to show an `individualized suspicion' nor a `demonstrated problem of drug abuse' and there was no `threshold level' of violation that needed to be satisfied.

Since it's been established that cell phones are fair game, could this ruling be used in defence of random cell phone checks?

I'd ask what next, but I fear I already know.

We are... we currently buy both Progress and Soyuz missions to meet our requirements. We can't continue to do this because there is a law on the book that says we can't. It is called the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. Relief has been extended but it prohibits us from dealing with countries that share technology with Iran and Syria. After 2011, it will be illegal to buy Soyuz and Progress flights.

From EFF

Hey has anyone noticed that hidden in the so called Nework Neutrality bill (S. 2686: Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109 -2686 are provisions to create digital video and audio copyright flags, to implement analog watermarking, and to force all hardware and software to respect them? What a ticking time bomb!

Govtrack will let you set up RSS feeds to monitor your representatives, catch legislation based on keywords, etc.

It's a good start but I would like to see more sophisticated tools available.

My vote is for the new "National Service act of 2006", at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill= h109-4752 This strikes me as worse, much worse.

For the status and full text of the bills, and tracking via RSS and email updates:

H.R. 5417: Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006

H.R. 5252: Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006

For the status and full text of the bills, and tracking via RSS and email updates:

H.R. 5417: Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2006

H.R. 5252: Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act of 2006

Just as the subject is written, do you?

Your concern to genetically-modified (and patented) varieties of crop is a legitimate concern -- intellectual property can travel by wind and "taint" a neighbors substrate, causing a tournament for the forced subjection to a foreign private law. Recently as of February of 2006, CONGRESS was receiving a Bill from that HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES as H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act." Despite the misleading title of the Bill, among the content was that whomever bought any food were not allowed to know of certain ingredients or qualities on its nature.

How this all sets is, as of recently, it is a known fact that "Aspartame" causes cancer; its an artificial sweetener in many beverages, mostly in them branded as diet drinks. Another recent discovery is at microwave-popcorn factories, where everyone working among the "artificial butter flavoring" had all caught severe allergies and atrocious lung cancers. It was such a dangerous cancer that the remedy for one worker was a lung transplant! The chemical that caused the damage is "Diacetyl" and also is used in various brew of beer and who knows what else.

That Bill would allow those corporations to simply use any ingredient, method, or application of artifice to provide an incomplete and misleading report to the Contents of all packages lading the product assembled of them. It's no different than postal fraud, when someone intentionally mis-presents the contents of a parcel, where harm can be incurred by the worker that moves said parcel (even from grocery store to their domicile and house). I don't drink diet beverages, but I know some people that do. Nearby me is a box of microwave-popcorn, where on the Contents is no list for the ingredients of the artificial "light butter"; there is information on oiled popcorn kernels, but nothing on the butte flavoring -- into the trash it will all go.

If there ever was false advertising for a product, the above Bill would only try to seal someone's prior and future effort at fraud; brought from the end of genetically-engineered and patent crap and into the lives of people.

References are...
thomas.log.gov (Four versions of 4167 to this hour)
MSDS for butanedione
DRAYMANS.COM on Diacetyl
Ambulance-chasing lawyers
RENSE.COM on the Bill(a conspiracy theorist/fact never hurt anyone to prove)

oh no! I found this PrionPlanet.com article, therefore there shouldn't be anything to worry about this Bill or aritificial butter flavouring. Keep grazing the grocery aisles, and take your monthly shots (money-pill/vaccine shots)

GovTrack appears to be exactly what you asked for. You can look up past and present bills, see where they are within the system, monitor what your own representatives are doing, and even get email updates about the progress of a bill.

This action obviously will not stem identity theft but the hope is that this will push banks into security improvements that will make identity theft much harder.

I agree. I was listening to Clark Howard a couple of weeks ago on the radio and he was talking about how 99.9% of US banks have atrocious security when it comes to online banking. I know that identity theft also happens offline, but I also think that you have to criminalize grossly negligent behavior, or else you end up with a situation like what we have today: banks see it as more fiscally reasonable to absorb the cost of the problem than to even attempt to fix it. The problem is that this has tragic consequences for the individuals that are victimized. Hopefully the US congress will jump on board and start dealing with serious problems, instead of concerning themselves with things like college sports and drug testing among athletes, which ultimately shouldn't be of importance to the federal government.

No, but posting informative comments peppered with sarcasm might. For instance, did you know a law can be created without discussion these days in America? I certainly didn't. The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) has been amended, without published notice of proposed amendments, under the authority of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. If anyone can navigate that maze of spagetti code to see how these new amendments apply, I'm sure you'll find sharing BMG's latest offerings an offense punishable by death. What next? Taxation without representation?