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HomeSec In the News
The U.S. Homeland Security bill is steamrolling through Congress, on target to be passed within a couple of days. Since its passage is guaranteed, in whatever form it finally ends up, lawmakers are attempting to tack on their own pet projects to the bill so they can ride its coattails. A CNet article mentions that a version of the Cyberspace Security Enhancement Act has been appended to the HomeSec bill. William Safire blasts the addition in the New York Times. The Times has another story on the bill that notes some of the corporate pork that is also being added to the bill.
I'm sorry for saying this. It's not constructive and rather anti-US, I suppose.
But from all the things that look stupid about US politics from this side of the ocean, this phenomenon of tacking on loads of totally unrelated stuff to some bill must be the worst.
Has any politician who did this ever defended this process in public? Is there one politician left who takes this whole democracy thing seriously?
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
MSNBC has a good article up about this"
A last-minute addition to a proposal for a Department of Homeland Security bill would punish malicious computer hackers with life in prison.
Don't even try to put all of the blame for this on Republicans. Democrats and Republicans are equal opportunity pigs when it comes to piggyback legislation.
Bush Jr. (or any other president) would only use the veto to kill of the other side's pork and goodies, not his own. I'd also expect it to be widely abused by whoever's in power to promote their own political agenda, rather than for the good of the people to eliminate non-germane pork.
Corporate freebies tacked onto bills in the current environment will be allowed to stay, since they paid the current President and party for them.
Wow... The same site that screams FUD when it comes to an OS will allow this kinda post every day. IT's sad.
Keep in mind that the newly elected congress hasn't started yet. Yes, this is still a democratic majority that is letting this happen.
--nw
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
It seems George Orwell was off by about twenty years....
Yes. Adding ridiculous provisions to a bill is another way to stop it from passage. Add enough crap and when it comes up for final passage, it will be voted down because instead of a $200 million dollar bill its turned into a $2 Billion dollar bill.
The legislative system has many places like this where it is possible to destroy a bill. Remove it, and you give the majority more power in Congress.
That's not an example of line-item veto. The president wouldn't get veto per-ammendment, the veto would be by spending item. For example, if Congress passed an appropriation bill that's called "The Space Flight and Ketchup Act of 2002" and it went through Congress unammended with $500 million to NASA for the Space Shuttle project, and $100 million to the FDA for research on preserving ketchup better, the president could approve the money for NASA, but veto the FDA's project. Right now, the president would be faced with a double-or-nothing decision. This would only apply to bills where funds are going to more than one place, it would not allow him to do something like accept a copyright law but eliminate consumer protections.
Yes. It's a fundamental blow to the separation of powers in the Constitution. The intent is for Congress to provide legislation that the President must either accept or reject. If the President can go about completely changing the legislation, then he's dangerously intruding on the power of Congress, and throwing the balance of government off.
The immediate problem with the line-item veto is that it is unconstitutional. Sometimes the Supremes get it right (6-3). :)
So of course it could be enacted as a constitutional amendment. This would be a grave error IMHO, as law-making authority belongs with the lawmakers, in Congress, not the White House, which has the veto as final sanity check on Congress (and over which the Framers pointedly permitted a 2/3 vote of Congress to override). A line-item veto would wreak havoc: the President would be able to "pass" a statute other than Congress intended (there's no reason the President would be limited to so-called pork -- why not dissect the statute's principal topic?). Why would anyone have this great faith in a single person to do the right thing -- Presidents engage in pork barrel politics, too, and surely we can all think of at least one President on the last thirty years we wouldn't have trusted with this.
If you have a problem with the lawmaking process, don't increase the power of a lone executive with whatever agenda; focus on the 535-member Congress, as the Framers intended. They did not want a monarch, or even an imitation one.
In fairness the debate on this is long and complex. I won't pretend to present or be able to present a full balanced picture. But grant that the issue is much more complex than a magic bullet for pork-barrel abuses, and look into it more than sound bites permit.
Just to put it into more context...
Lets say that a bill is going through Congress to put better controls on Ketchup manufacturing, because some people got e.coli from ketchup. This is going to sail right through; think of the children! So they start tacking on little bits that have nothing to do, really, with the problem at hand. "100 million to the FDA for improved Ketchup testing. And 500 Million to NASA. For, umm...space..ketchup...testing."
Now, the President has the ability to only say 'yes' or 'no' to the entire law, as presented to him. This is, I think, how it should be; y'all need to attack the root problem of fucked up laws going through Congress. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; America's political system would work far better if y'all used it as intended, and abolished the concept of the 'career politician.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
While the Homeland Security Bill is most certainly assured to pass now that the Republicans will control all of the 108th Congress (don't forget, its still the 107th, and the Dems still control the Senate) that doesn't mean all of the items being tacked on by the Senate will actually make it into law.
The House of Representatives already passed HR5005, the Homeland Security Bill, and did so with such tight rules that there was no chance for riders to be added. As such, when the conferees from the two houses to sit down and rectify the differences in the bill, the House will not have the pork that the Senate has... and I would go so far as to say that much of the pork will be stricken.
The computer hacking bill, on the other hand, has already passed the House. I was actually in the gallery at the time and watched the bill pass without a single objection. Even the floor leader managing the opposing side was in support of the bill. I don't know where "our" lobbyist was on this issue, but it was already decided long ago.
During the last few weeks of Congress there is a "great sucking sound". In other words, all of the bills that have been stuck in committee are suddenly tacked on to popular bills. Its been going on for years, and it is actually one of the few things that diminishes the power of the committee system, which in itself has some highly undemocratic practices. But that doesn't mean those items make it pass the conference committee.
Oh, and one last thing, about the line-item veto. Its not that the President's want it and didn't get it... Congress granted the power but the Courts ruled in unconstitutional because the President is not supposed to be vested with such power. If he did have that power, what would stop him from taking off items that would help members of the opposing party while keeping on items that help his own party? No, the power of the purse needs to stay in the hands of Congress. But we as voters need to stop rewarding Congressmen just because they send $50,000,000 toward our district.
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
SLASHDOTIA - The community known as Slashdot has announced today it's decision to secede from the United States of America. President and Commander(Taco)-In-Chief Rob Malda made the announcement shortly after new announcements came of ridiculous "rider" bills being tacked onto popular legislation.
Mr. Malda was quoted as saying, "with a Republican controled [sic] house and senate, we are loosing [sic] our RIGHTS as Americans! Well, those of us from Slashdot that live in America, that is. Therefore we are announcing the immediate secesion [sic] of Slashdot from the United States of America. We are drafting our Declaration of Independance [sic] as I speak. Thousands of my fellow Slashdotians are currently modding proposed wording for the decleration [sic] up and down, right now." He added, "Of course, I will be in charge of the final proofreading."
Fellow Slashdotian staffer Roblimo was quoted as saying, "Yes, we are hoping for a declaration that is +5 Insightful, but I fear we could end up with +5 Funny. It really depends on who happens to be participating in the conversation for the 1 hour it will take us to draft the document."
When asked how Slashdot -- devoid of a military -- figures to fair any better than the South did during the Civil War, Mr. Malda simply responded, "Two words: Slashdot Affect. [sic]"
Back to you, Dan.
"And like that
First of all, You will not change my mind by pointing out flaws in my language. So what if I don't express myself perfectly? I'm not claiming to be a master of the language such as Hemingway or Fitzgerald.
Secondly, this is fighting fire with fire. If the conservative pundits want to reduce it down schoolyard style bullying and name-calling, well, the people have demonstrated that they don't get it when one party tries to be above that (see the Clinton years for proof, where the location of his dick was more important than his policy). You have to speak in a language they understand.
And yes, the conservatives of today, especially the young ones and the ones that haven't been out of their $200k house in the upper-middle-class suburbs in months, are fascists, militarists, and heartless disciples of Randian social Darwinism. You can see it all over the net. People who have never been around the poor or people who have been HELPED by government programs sit in judgement.
If you went to college on a Stafford loan, you were helped by a gov't program. If you've ever been on unemployment, you were helped by a gov't program. It's not just hypocrisy, but pure ignorance. The arch-conservatives would gladly get rid of student loans because that's a way of assisting those who don't deserve it, who couldn't find a way to pay for themselves. And to these arch-conservatives, unemployment insurance is just a way for lazy fucks to leech off the system.
The extreme conservatism that's going on in the USA right now is calculating, cold, and heartless in nature, and it mixes this false patriotism with the moronic "america kicks ass" mentality and it makes me fucking ill. I won't change my mind on this point.
I'm no great Safire fan -- he is occasionally credibility impaired (he makes things up), his defense of Israel verges on blindness, he continually tries to rehabilitate his former employer Nixon, and so on. But on occasion he leaps out with the ferocity contained in the NYT column to defend civil liberties -- in the libertarian get-the-hell-out-of-my-backyard-you-government-spi es tradition -- and gets it right, in the morally correct sense. Because he has credibility with the right, his words here carry much greater political influence that a stack of Mother Jones and The Nation reaching to the Moon. And I am grateful for his courage; he could just as easily sit it out, or mouth the sonorous rah-rah rant of the police state crowd.
Ensure to us citizens a country of security -- but without devastating our own. I have seriously begun to contemplate using cash more than traceable credit, and I'm not particularly paranoid, and yes I "don't have anything to hide." I just don't like buying a bag of Fritos wondering whether it will eventually raise my health insurance premiums because I don't eat right. Don't laugh, it could happen, in a thousand ways less fritoless (er, frivolous) than my example.
Thanks.
NEW HOMELAND SECURITY BILL DROPS INVESTIGATION INTO 9-11.
I guess we don't need to know what happened, just what we were told what happened by the president.
Hammer of Truth
The bill also tacks on loosely worded research funding for Texas A&M. It also lets the White House decide who gets hired and fired, bypassing employment standards regulations (who's gonna be suprised when it's 99% white?). The government can now slap wiretaps whereever they think appropriate, and ISPs can divulge information without fear of reprisal. The nice people who make the smallpox vaccine are now protected from litigation, as are the nice people who make metal detectors, and the nice security guards who man them. So when the big bad man carries his briefcase of smallpox through JFK International, you won't be able to sue anyone for reading Archie Digest when he was supposed to be watching the screen, and when it turns out your smallpox vaccine was in fact a dose of really, really dilluted cherry Kool-Aid, well, sucks to be you.
In other news that undoubtedly went unreported, your faithful representatives have bitten the bullet, and given themselves another pay raise. Now your Reps, Senators, VP, and about 1000 other people (literally) make over $154,000 a year, not including kickbacks, expense budgets, under-the-table exchanges, contributions to their re-election fund...
God Bless America.
(I'm legally required to say that, now that Bush signed a bill re-emphasizing the importance of "God" in the pledge of alleigence, as well as "In god we trust" as your national motto. So much for separation of church and state, eh?)
(And before your left-wingers start running your mouth off, I'll point out that the Democrats didn't oppose any of these bills, admitting that the soon-to-be Republican majority would make the effort useless. So much for standing up for what you believe in.)
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
As a concerned 11th-generation American, I'm completely aghast at this latest bit of totalitarian legislation. Evidently, the CSEA (and the USA PATRIOT Act, for that matter) won't require *any* government agency to have "probable cause" to read/acquire anyone's personal information anymore. The Executive Branch will not even have to report to the Judiciary or Legislature on its frequent-as-you-like cyber-dragnets. Just in case you Americans out there on /. weren't aware of it, the United States Constitution is supposed to protect you from this sort of unfettered tyrannical power. Here's the text of the Fourth Ammendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
("and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause" - well, I guess if we don't bother with the warrants anymore, it's not really violating the Constitution, now is it?)
Granted, the Founding Fathers didn't include "emails" in the text. However, any reasonable interpretation of the intent of this Ammendment must include emails and other personal communications (as these protections had been extended to telephone conversations).
Our government now has unlimited powers. My tax collector and the Dept. of Education may get to snoop into my private life at will. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we no longer have a Rule of LAW in this nation. We now have a Rule of POLITICS. The politicos, the senators and congressmen who may pass this anti-American rubbish into law, should they do so, will be in direct violation of their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
We are now ruled by the lawless (viz Adm. Poindexter, convicted felon). And by the time We The People give a damn, Soviet Russia will look libertine in comparrison!
I just hope I don't get arrested for saying that one day.
"Sic transeunt omnia."