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Source Control For Bills In Congress?

grepya writes "An article in Slate talks about the sneaky way a major change in the Patriot Act reauthorization bill was made by (possibly) a Congressional staffer without even his boss knowing about it. (The change increased the power of the Executive at the expense of the other two branches of government.) Now, I write software for a large and complex system containing millions of lines of code and I know that nobody could slip a single line of code into my project without my knowledge. This is because everything that goes into the build goes into a source control system, and email notification is generated to interested parties. This is for a body of work that affects perhaps a few hundred thousand people at most (our company and the combined population of all our customer organizations). Shouldn't the same process be applied to bills being debated in national legislatures that affect potentially hundreds of millions of people?"

8 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. Should, yes... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 4, Funny

    This problem should really take care of itself. Just get a staffer to SQL-inject* the necessary clause as a rider for some boring budget stuff that no one will read all the way through, wait for Dubya to sign it, and then pop out and shout p0wned! Then they'll have to build that foolproof system, and we'll be all set.

    *SQL = Staffer Quill Language

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
  2. alternatively...RTF(_) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The irony of slashdot telling people to RTFB is black hole massive.

  3. Re:I think I saw this. by trimbo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wasn't this in the last episode of "24"?

    No, no no, you're thinking of the one where Jack yelled into his cellphone "Chloe, There's NO TIME!", got shot and died, was brought back to life, saved the President, yelled "DAMMIT!", confonted the bad guy (a different high ranking government official bad guy than last week), pulled out his gun, pistol-whipped the high ranking government official and threatened to kill him with "TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW NOW!"

  4. Re: Very Simple To Do by DumbSwede · · Score: 5, Funny

    Has I understand it, it should be simple enough to just have somebody just slip this new Mandatory Read law in.

    Anyone here at Slashdot know someone on the inside?

  5. Re:Alternative 2 by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Funny

    cvs? It sounds like someone's already using subversion...

  6. I think I can see it now... by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The legal system on an index card, volume 1:

    1) Don't be a twit.

    Sincerely,
            Congress

    THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    1. Re:I think I can see it now... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

      Instead, we get 2500 pages of byzantine gunk and a cover page that says:

      BROUGHT TO YOU BY EXXON-MOBIL

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  7. Re:Read The Bills Act by Asic+Eng · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shouldn't be too difficult to have a staffer slip that into a bill.