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Let your congress critter know you want them to support this bill. If you don't know who is yours you can find them here and from their page send them an e-mail or get the number to call their DC or local office. I have already sent an e-mail to my worthless war hawk nuclear football carrying congress critter but I suspect that it will fall on deaf ears. I also contacted my senators but don't expect much from either of them as one avoids controversy like the plague and the other has been hanging low for a while.

If you want the surveillance state rolled back, do what you can to support this - take a couple of minutes and e-mail your U.S. House Representative:

http://www.house.gov/represent...

The more public support it appears this gains, the more likely it is that we can get some push back on our road to total surveillance. Much better than just saying it's got no chance and not doing anything.

Here you go.

https://www.faa.gov/uas/

3 links at the bottom of the page going over regulation for government, non-government, and hobby usage, including relevent references to existing law.

And none of those laws pertain to drones. At most they give the FAA authority to regulate them. That means the FAA can create regulations. It doesn't mean that they can put up a webpage and tell people what to do.

By all means cite a law or regulation you believe says otherwise. However, I want a citation of a specific passage of law, not an FAA website.

Hint, you can find it all at one of these two sites:
http://uscode.house.gov/
http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/EC...

Every enforceable law has a basis in one of those.

Sure they do... in the same way that the recent Republican-backed net neutrality bill would have preserved genuine net neutrality, and was not even slightly an Orwellian doublespeak-named poison pill stuffed chock-full of loopholes in order to accomplish exactly the opposite.

Let's take a look at HR 1030, shall we? In part, it reads:

Section 6(b) of the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 (42 U.S.C. 4363 note) is amended to read as follows: "(b)(1) The Administrator shall not propose, finalize, or disseminate a covered action unless all scientific and technical information relied on to support such covered action is-- (A) the best available science; (B) specifically identified; and (C) publicly available online in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results."

In other words, what it really means is "the EPA is prohibited from regulating anything to reduce global warming because no possible justification would be deemed capable of 'substantial reproduction of research results' until after we've collectively finished 'proving' it by cooking the planet... or at least, all proposed regulations would be tied up in court for decades by industry shills arguing such."

And what about the other one, HR 1029? It reads, in part, that:

The Administrator shall ensure that-- (A) the scientific and technical points of view represented on and the functions to be performed by the Board are fairly balanced among the members of the Board

In other words, legitimate scientific and technical points of view must be "balanced" by industry shills.

(C) persons with substantial and relevant expertise are not excluded from the Board due to affiliation with or representation of entities that may have a potential interest in the Board's advisory activities, so long as that interest is fully disclosed to the Administrator and the public and appointment to the Board complies with section 208 of title 18, United States Code

In other words, it's trying to say "quit blocking appointment of our industry shills to the board! It's making it too hard to effect regulatory capture!"

There's more bad stuff in there -- along with some good stuff, which is unsurprising because if the bill were all bad it would be too blatantly obvious even for some Republicans to support it -- but I can't be bothered to go through and analyze the whole thing.

Sure they do... in the same way that the recent Republican-backed net neutrality bill would have preserved genuine net neutrality, and was not even slightly an Orwellian doublespeak-named poison pill stuffed chock-full of loopholes in order to accomplish exactly the opposite.

Let's take a look at HR 1030, shall we? In part, it reads:

Section 6(b) of the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 (42 U.S.C. 4363 note) is amended to read as follows: "(b)(1) The Administrator shall not propose, finalize, or disseminate a covered action unless all scientific and technical information relied on to support such covered action is-- (A) the best available science; (B) specifically identified; and (C) publicly available online in a manner that is sufficient for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of research results."

In other words, what it really means is "the EPA is prohibited from regulating anything to reduce global warming because no possible justification would be deemed capable of 'substantial reproduction of research results' until after we've collectively finished 'proving' it by cooking the planet... or at least, all proposed regulations would be tied up in court for decades by industry shills arguing such."

And what about the other one, HR 1029? It reads, in part, that:

The Administrator shall ensure that-- (A) the scientific and technical points of view represented on and the functions to be performed by the Board are fairly balanced among the members of the Board

In other words, legitimate scientific and technical points of view must be "balanced" by industry shills.

(C) persons with substantial and relevant expertise are not excluded from the Board due to affiliation with or representation of entities that may have a potential interest in the Board's advisory activities, so long as that interest is fully disclosed to the Administrator and the public and appointment to the Board complies with section 208 of title 18, United States Code

In other words, it's trying to say "quit blocking appointment of our industry shills to the board! It's making it too hard to effect regulatory capture!"

There's more bad stuff in there -- along with some good stuff, which is unsurprising because if the bill were all bad it would be too blatantly obvious even for some Republicans to support it -- but I can't be bothered to go through and analyze the whole thing.

>There is no scientific literature on how nasty fracking fluid is (blatantly not just inert chemicals) because the companies using it refuse to disclose what's in it.

That's quite simply not true.

Read: http://democrats.energycommerc...

The only argument I can see that is valid deals with studies including personally identifiable medical information. Those kind of studies should already be required to remove PII prior to use by the government

TFA cites a letter sent to the Congressional committee by David Morganstein, president of the American Statistical Association. He writes:

[S]imple but necessary de-identification methods—like stripping names and other personally identifiable information (PII)—often do not suffice to protect confidentiality. Statisticians and computer scientists have repeatedly shown that it is possible to link individuals to publicly available sources, even with PII removed.

You can read Morganstein's full letter here. [PDF alert]

The problem is that IRS is not following the law, none of these organizations have any right claiming tax exempt status under the law: From uscode.house.gov 501c (4)(A) Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare, or local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes. But from the IRS pages the wording is changed to To be operated exclusively to promote social welfare, an organization must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community (emphasis mine)

Hate to break this to you, but you don't know what the h*ll you are talking about. Bills can be introduced in the House at pretty much any time by any representative.

Quoting from http://www.house.gov/content/l...

"Any member in the House of Representatives may introduce a bill at any time while the House is in session by simply placing it in the “hopper” at the side of the Clerk's desk in the House Chamber."

It's also quite easy to introduce a bill into the Senate.

BTW, the previous Senate voted on a higher percentage of bills that originated in the House than the last time the Democrats held a majority in the House, so let's just put that tired claim about Senator Reid to bed, shall we? It's complete nonsense. Of course, that's only the first piece of nonsense you wrote, but the majority of that could be defended by claiming its your opinion.

> Wow. I mean, I travel a ton and get annoyed by the TSA as much as the next guy, but you really think it's OK to take a gun onto an airplane?

What matters here is the context - the TSA needs to justify its 7+ billion dollar budget. Add to that the net drain on national economic productivity of all the time wasted by every single passenger who is slowed down by the excessive process, plus the cost of all that personal stuff they make people dump in those collection barrels. All that money, and all they are catching are a bunch of idiots who forgot that they were carrying.

When you consider that the TSA has a detection failure rate of 70% that means for every gun they do confiscate, 2 more get through. And yet we have had zero gun related problems on aircraft for the entire lifetime of the TSA. So, that says to me that while letting people carry guns on planes isn't the wisest idea, it isn't all that much of a problem. Certainly not a 7 billion dollar problem.

And how far we've fallen. Our congressmen used to have brawls on the floor.

http://history.house.gov/Histo...

funny enough they could still laugh it off and get stuff done just two days later.

Hold on a second, I just want to be clear here. Is this Freedom Act the same one that passed the house, with far more Nays (proportionally) from democrats than from republicans?
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201...

Would this be the act to limit the NSA's power, the NSA being an executive branch department which certainly the president can take executive action to reign in, as thats actually one of his constitutionally enumerated powers? I mean, if the President has the power to override congress by refusing to carry out legislation (ie, with immigration), then CERTAINLY he has the power to tell the NSA to stop collecting whatever he tells them.

And you say it failed in the senate-- just to be clear, this would be the senate that is majority controlled by democrats, correct?

I just want to be sure we're on the same page here.

Thomas Massie is a tech guy with a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering & a master's in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, and founded SensAble. I'm sure he had to do quite a bit of coding in his time in school, and probably a bit while he was building his company as well.

Tax policy analysts often use two concepts of tax rates. The first is the marginal tax rate or the tax rate on the last dollar of income. If a taxpayer’s income were to increase by $1, the marginal tax rate indicates what proportion of that dollar would be paid in taxes. The highest marginal tax rate is referred to as the top marginal tax rate...

Although the statutory top marginal tax rate was over 90% in the 1950s, the average tax rate for the highest income taxpayers was much lower. The average tax rates at five-year intervals since 1945 for the top 0.1% and top 0.01% of taxpayers are shown in Figure 1. The average tax rate for the top 0.01% (one taxpayer in 10,000) was about 60% in 1945 and fell to 24.2% by 1990.

We've had marginal tax brackets for a long time.

Final Transcript contains the same quote verbatim.

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Final-Transcript-EE-Renewable-Energy-Complementary-Policies-Climate-Legislation-2009-2-26.pdf

Was it you from 71.185.49.96 that removed the quote from Joe Barton's wikipedia entry?

http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090226/transcript_20090226_ee.pdf

Starting Line 1708

Now, wind is God's way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it is hotter to areas where it is cooler. That is what wind is. Wouldn't it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I am not saying that is going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale--I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something. You can't transfer that heat and the heat goes up. It is just something to think about.

Also, cf http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=1843613

Should we forget about the civil advancements of our past generations?

Apparently so, and this makes my point.

Don't complain about it here. Don't argue about Republicans vs. Democrats on a forum. That's useless. Reach out. Make yourself heard. If you're a constituent of these guys, ruin their names a little bit.... Talk to your neighbors about them, and then TELL THEM YOU'RE DOING IT. Representative democracy only works if you make the representatives listen to you.

Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) : http://coffman.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.7882

Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) : http://brooks.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.4801 Snicker. That's the War on Whites guy. :D

Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) : http://gardner.house.gov/ Phone: (202) 225-4676

I listed the DC phone numbers, but you can go to the bottom of their web pages and call their home offices too. Ask them why they're trying to bury one of America's leading space companies in red tape. Ask them why they appear to be using big government against a private company. Ask them how they justify that as Republicans. Ask them if they were paid to do so by large companies. :D

Don't complain about it here. Don't argue about Republicans vs. Democrats on a forum. That's useless. Reach out. Make yourself heard. If you're a constituent of these guys, ruin their names a little bit.... Talk to your neighbors about them, and then TELL THEM YOU'RE DOING IT. Representative democracy only works if you make the representatives listen to you.

Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) : http://coffman.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.7882

Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) : http://brooks.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.4801 Snicker. That's the War on Whites guy. :D

Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) : http://gardner.house.gov/ Phone: (202) 225-4676

I listed the DC phone numbers, but you can go to the bottom of their web pages and call their home offices too. Ask them why they're trying to bury one of America's leading space companies in red tape. Ask them why they appear to be using big government against a private company. Ask them how they justify that as Republicans. Ask them if they were paid to do so by large companies. :D

Don't complain about it here. Don't argue about Republicans vs. Democrats on a forum. That's useless. Reach out. Make yourself heard. If you're a constituent of these guys, ruin their names a little bit.... Talk to your neighbors about them, and then TELL THEM YOU'RE DOING IT. Representative democracy only works if you make the representatives listen to you.

Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) : http://coffman.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.7882

Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) : http://brooks.house.gov/ Phone: 202.225.4801 Snicker. That's the War on Whites guy. :D

Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) : http://gardner.house.gov/ Phone: (202) 225-4676

I listed the DC phone numbers, but you can go to the bottom of their web pages and call their home offices too. Ask them why they're trying to bury one of America's leading space companies in red tape. Ask them why they appear to be using big government against a private company. Ask them how they justify that as Republicans. Ask them if they were paid to do so by large companies. :D

First off, Federal R&D spending has not declined strongly, or not at all for that matter in both total amounts as well as inflation-adjusted amounts. At worst it has been flat. But why is that? I assume that you don't really understand how the Federal budget process works, do you? The President submits his budget, the Senate praises it for strengthening our commitment to the future, and the House eviscerates the President as a communist/muslim who wastes money on pseudo-science issues like climate change and "green" energy. What follows is a lot of grandstanding and name calling whereby the two chambers, who incidentally are the ones who are supposed to actually pass funding bills, don't do shit and end up passing continuing resolutions for all bills (except the one that has to do with funding Congress) that keeps funding essentially flat for another year. Then certain people who seem to outsource their critical thinking skills to one or two talking heads on the radio or TV for political analysis find a way to blame the President for not doing Congress's job as mandated in the Constitution.

And what, as American Citizens, would you have us do? Rise up in arms? Overthrow our government?

First, contact elected officials, both your own and those in a position over the bill's progress. I wrote to six of them today when I read the story. I also contacted several of the committee members including Bob Goodlatte who is the committee chairman. Yes, one person is unlikely to get much change, but enough people contacting his office can induce change.

Second, encourage those around you contact their representitives, and encourage them to directly contact those in the committee who can get things changed. Just like I did up there in that first paragraph. Post the links on facebook and other social media (also already done this today). Encourage people to send a message, ANY MESSAGE, that references the bill to their legislator's office.

One or two messages won't do it. When it gets to be enough messages that the staffers notice, or even better enough that it overwhelms their office staff.

What would I have you do? Make a noise. Any noise you can. This reply is the first one that would be considered "preaching to the crowd", but is about my 15th communication about it today. That is what you can do. Make it clear to the legislators that it is important to you, raise the layperson's awareness of the issue, and help encourage others to contact the right offices. Even if it is nothing more than writing your own messages and then calling on the Internet Trolls that you know to send them messages, that is still something. Do what you can to get your voice heard, since it needs to be heard over the corporate money.

You haven't been paying attention, blinded by partisan slogan bullshit. This has been happening since before 9/11.

No, you haven't been paying attention.

Obama's DNI Clapper lied under oath to Congress about mass surveillance programs.

Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder was held in Contempt of Congress:

On June 28, 2012, Holder became the first U.S. Attorney General in history to be held in both criminal and civil contempt.

Obama's IRS political appointee and documented raging conservative hater Lois Lerner dog ate her hard drive, and she was also held in Contempt of Congress for refusing to testify under oath about her politicization of the IRS.

So, "this has been happening since before 9/11?

Ummm, BULLSHIT.

So Cabinet-level officials such as the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence have committed perjury during Congressional testimony or been held in Contempt of Congress before?

No, they haven't - every other time officials of that level have been about to be held in Contempt of Congress, the official caved and supplied Congress with what was being asked.

Holder still hasn't turned over the subpenaed documents that were the subject of his being held in Contempt of Congress.

NOTHING has happened to Clapper for committing PERJURY.

And how many more risible excuses is Lerner going to shit out?

The US has its own plans http://judiciary.house.gov/ind... (Jul 24 2014)
Read what the US gov could do in the first 10 page pdf:
"amend the law to create a felony penalty for unauthorized Internet streaming. Specifically, we recommend the creation of legislation to establish a felony charge for infringement through unauthorised public performances conducted for commercial advantage or private financial gain,”"
and for the international friends:
"diplomatic and trade-based pressure"

Right into the ocean.

They will respond to DMCA's by sending it to you, but you must respond or they will disconnect your machine. This isn't any different if your IP address is found to be serving malware or sending out spam.

It is neither required, nor good for an ISP to take any actions based on a letter purporting to be a DMCA takedown request. The end user should always be the recipient of the letter. If the ISP handles it in any way: this should be solely to forward the letter to the proper recipient.

With regards to copyrights, a court order is and should be required to require disconnection of any telecommunication or IP networking services, etc.

As long as the ISP is a conduit and not hosting the content, then the Section 512(a) safe harbor applies.

The DMCA’s exemption of providers of routing and transmission services (a.k.a. “mere conduits”) from the notice-and-takedown requirements in 512(c) is entirely consistent with the fact that such providers do not store or control user content.47 Nevertheless, the exemption has

operated in the context of P2P file-sharing to negate the scalable enforcement mechanism that notice and takedown provides. Inasmuch as P2P file-sharing shifts the locus of infringing activity from the storage function to the transmission function, it places such activity beyond the knowledge and control of the OSP and thus beyond the reach of the enforcement scheme created by 512(c).48

As a consequence of the exemption of conduit providers from the notice and takedown requirements of 512(c), the expedited subpoena provision in the DMCA— 512(h)—has also been held inapplicable to these providers.49 This is because the application for a subpoena under 512(h) must include a copy of the notice described in 512(c)(3)(A).

We do have a head version. Here's the federal: http://uscode.house.gov/

Here's california's: http://leginfo.legislature.ca....

Here you go!

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Darrell Issa (CA-49), Chairman

Debunking the Myth that the IRS Targeted Progressives: How the IRS and Congressional Democrats Misled America about Disparate Treatment

He walked out of the State of the Union Address saying "I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers". Really adult.

He's running for Senate in Texas against Senator Corwyn, the Senate Minority Whip, and he just dropped off the map. He missed 17 House votes in a row. It also seems that even though he is a official candidate, he is doing zero campaigning. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-senate-candidate-steve-stockman-goes-awol/

He has also been cited by the Office of Congressional Ethics (I know, I laughed too). He accepted campaign contributions from his own staff members, which is a big no no. He is also accused of using his full time House staff members to work on his Congressional campaign. They all pull this trick, but there is a legal way and a stupid way to do this. He chose stupid. http://oce.house.gov/2014/06/june-11-2014---oce-referral-regarding-rep-steve-stockman.html

So it's not surprising that he would be the one to further complicate the snake pit of uncontrolled domestic surveillance by injecting it into a congressional investigation. Considering his quote about Obama breaking the constitution, his appeal to use unconstitutionally collected data to get at the IRS is mind boggling. His brain is clearly an irony free zone.

I'd bet the NSA has all of them. They collect everyone's.

Apparently someone's done just that: Congressman Steve Stockman (R, TX)

Now if only we could get names of lawbreakers out of government agencies. I know it will be a cold day in Hell before that happens, but it would be nice

For starters:
http://www.house.gov/represent...
http://www.senate.gov/general/...

...includes attempting to force Americans to pay taxes quarterly, rather than having them withheld from pay. Because, you know, if people had to do more paperwork with their taxes, they'd vote Republican.

Had to write as anon.

Oh, and let's find out who the 121 douches were that voted against this.

Here you go: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2014/roll230.xml

Ok we did this once 12 years ago and got DRM legal requirements non voted on. We can do this again.

For American Slashdotters:

1.) Tell the FCC what you think in polite terms and why it is a bad idea for business, consumers, and innovation?

2) Go to to your house of representatives website and use the zip code finder in the upper right hand corner. If your personal representative has a (R) in his or her name mention how you worry about the government overstepping its boundaries and ruining the largest emerging economic trend in history. Mention this FoxNews article, where Republicans are urging the FCC to bud out. If you work in the IT industry mention how you will be impacted and how unregulated internet led to the greatest economic expansion in history in the late 1990s.

If your representative has a (D) in his or her name, tell them how it will unfairly impact consumers and force unfair monopolies more power and ruin innovations with services like Netflix. Mention economic impacts as well. Use Netflix as an example of something that used to work until a few months ago and cite sources where L3 admitted it was being bottlenecked on purpose.

Also both parites are under the assumption that the internet worked just fine without net neutrality and we still had the largest explosion of GDP growth in history. So why change (Mega Telecom sales pitch). So inform them that they were regulated beforehand and this time it is different.

Remember it is not about adding new rules that were never needed. It is about preventing new rules that are not in your emails regardless of parties to counter the
FUD of the telecom lobbyists

3. Let the Obama know how you feel? Yes, he does read email and hand written letters every night. Perhaps seeing a large push in volume all angry about this may get his attention?
4. Let your senator know? Copy and paste the email you sent your congressman if he or she is of the same party. If not emphasize free market if he or she is a (r) and consumers and monopolies if he or she is a (D).

Be polite and factual as possible. Yes they are corrupt, but many are inept and get all their FUD from lobbyists. Mention we never had anything like this to counter the fud this is socialism to have the same lane and this is a fast enabler not something that slows regular traffice down yada yada. Mention your IT background too to build credibility.

If enough people whine it may delay or cancel the vote.

We all know this is BS. But we also know the FCC doesn't have much backbone. U.S. folks, please show them your support:

http://www.fcc.gov/comments
http://www.fcc.gov/complaints
http://www.fcc.gov/discuss

You may also write your senator or member of congress:

http://www.senate.gov/general/...
http://www.house.gov/represent...

Comments or complaints sent to any of the above may do a lot more good than any posted here.

Just to throw out a few other things that you can / should do:

A petition to sign.

An email address that the FCC has set up for public comments on this issue.

Contact information for your congressional representatives.

Just be clear about what your position is. As in the parent example - ask for ISPs to be reclassified as common carriers. If all you do is say that you're in favor of a neutral Internet, or network neutrality, they'll be free to interpret that any way they like.

the offending language in Sec. 14219 of the farm bill seems to first appear in H.R. 6124, Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 which was sponsored by Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn.

Send him a message here: http://collinpeterson.house.go...

the offending language in Sec. 14219 of the farm bill seems to first appear in H.R. 6124, Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 which was sponsored by Rep. Collin C. Peterson, D-Minn.

Send him a message here: http://collinpeterson.house.go...

Link from autonews article here: http://docs.house.gov/meetings...

Link from autonews article here: http://docs.house.gov/meetings...

Link from autonews article here: http://docs.house.gov/meetings...

One of the few people in Congress who actually knows something about science is retiring.

Rush Holt, we will miss you.

https://holt.house.gov/biograp...

As much as I like to blame Oracle, the state may have added serious requirements at the last minute that complicated everything. These articles doesn't say anything about it. Same seems to go for all the troubled exchanges - so what's the problem?

It's basically a waterfall design where you have a group of non-technical people (state and federal government) writing the requirements document. That seems like a recipe for disaster to me.

So, was the information contained in that article wrong? The link quoted from a statement released by Lamar Smith. Here is another link to the same statement: http://science.house.gov/sites...
Hmmm, I don't see anything different there. So, is he lying? Or did the EPA fail to provide Congress with the science behind their new regulations?

Most of the elected represenititives need a bit of encouragement. Let your member of the US house know you would like them to support theses efforts. Also do the same for your senators.

Several government oversight bodies have ALL said this is unconstitutional and needs to be stopped. Who says nay? Obama and his cronies in the current administration. Nobody else. (Of course the NSA does, too, but they're just employees. They don't count.)

Well, there is that Pete King guy. He seems to be naying pretty loudly. Does he count?

The GOP went along with the sequester and new budget, both of which cut the DOD and DHS more than any other cabinet-level department.

Not according to Paul Ryan:

Q: Why is non-defense getting more money than defense?

A: This agreement increases the statutory caps for defense and non-defense in equal amounts. Both caps are each increased by about $22 billion in FY 14 and by $9 billion in FY 15.

Q: But isn’t non-defense getting a bigger spending increase compared to 2013?

A: Under the Budget Control Act, the upcoming sequester in January would only reduce defense spending from 2013 levels. This agreement adds back equally to defense and non-defense, so it prevents what would be devastating sequester cuts to defense, and both sides end up above their 2013 levels."

The HIPAA defines three categories of "covered entities". They are health care providers, health plans and health care clearinghouses. Because the site is government run it is not classified as a clearinghouse. Some people claim that it wouldn't be defined as a clearinghouse anyway. After reading the relevant section of the law I wasn't so sure, but the question is moot. The project is government run and the contractors enjoy sovereign immunity.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy...

The "Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act of 2014" would at least require notification. That bill passed the House with bipartisan support on January 10. I've not seen any reports on how or if the bill is proceding in the Senate.

http://docs.house.gov/billsthi...

From official statement from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) this ruling is a "victory for jobs and innovation." See http://energycommerce.house.gov/press-release/upton-walden-applaud-court-decision-favor-internet-free-government-control.

The mammoth TARP bailout of big banks was a one one of the most massive interventions in the economy ever and it was Republican lead.

Let's look at the vote:
For TARP: 172 Democrats, 91 Republicans
Against: 63 Democrats, 108 Republicans