Senate Cybersecurity Bill Stalled By Ridiculous Amendments

wiredmikey writes "Despite a recent push by legislators, it remains unclear whether the Senate will manage to vote on the proposed comprehensive cybersecurity legislation (Cybersecurity Act of 2012) before Congress adjourns at the end of the week for its summer recess. Once all the amendments (over 70) have been dealt with, the Senate could decide to vote on the bill immediately, or wait till after the summer recess. As usual, the Democrats and Republicans have been unable to agree on which amendments will be considered, effectively stalling the bill. And most interesting, is that in typical U.S. political fashion, some of the amendments have nothing to with the topic on hand (cybersecurity): ... Sen. Frank Lautenberg has filed a measure to ban high-capacity ammunition clips as part of a gun-reform proposal. And Sen. Mike Lee filed a bill that would ban abortion in Washington, D.C. after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Sen. Michael Bennet and Tom Coburn filed an amendment to expand the Office for Personnel Management's federal government's data center consolidation initiative. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested an amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act."

Comments

Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[rbanzai]

I know this is the way our government works, tacking on all sorts of stupid shit but it still seems absurd.

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[DJRumpy]

I wish they would change the rules to allow only amendments related to the legislation in question. It would seem such a simple thing would make congress much more efficient. Then again, I seriously doubt that was ever a priority for them.

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[bluefoxlucid]

I solved this problem ages ago, but nobody listens to me. I guess it's a curse: I'm some kind of miraculous oracle, I solve the world's problems on the backs of napkins, and nobody fucking cares. It's what I do.

Look, maybe if I say it enough somebody will listen. When you make a bill, you add a mission statement. A statement of purpose. It's legally binding. This bill has the purpose of ... improving the robustness of the economy of the United States of America by means of regulating the trading of securities. That's a statement of purpose.

Does banning abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy improve the robustness of the US economy? Does it do so by means of regulating the trading of securities?

No?

Well THAT LAW IS INVALID.

When you go to court, it should be a sound legal argument that the law is BULLSHIT and has nothing to do with what it's supposed to be about. It can be as far as showing that the intent of the law was to solve a particular social injustice and that the "criminal behavior" engaged in did not in fact perpetrate such injustice; or it can be as simple as showing that the law was intended to attack one problem and the section of the law in question has absolutely nothing to do with whatever the fuck it was supposed to address. These are actually the same thing. If you want a law against gun control, create a bill about controlling guns.

On the other hand, the law prescribes HOW to address the problem it seeks to control. That the law attempts to address "the proliferation of marijuana use" doesn't mean you can arrest someone for a clear case of marijuana use. The law must specify something about marijuana that is now illegal. If it's illegal to smoke marijuana, but not to grow and sell it, you can grow and sell it. If it's illegal to traffic marijuana, you can still PRODUCE it, and CONSUME it, but apparently you can't sell or trade it. If you want it to be illegal, you better say so. And if you say something that's not related to marijuana is suddenly illegal, THAT'S NOT FUCKING RELEVANT SO IT'S NOT ENFORCEABLE IN COURT.

Yes, it will cause problems with the legal interpretation of laws down the road. You know what? THAT HAPPENS ANYWAY. I've actually just suggested that we make INTENT more clear, so fuck off, this actually makes things work as expected. It, of course, takes power out of certain peoples' hands--in theory. In reality legislature has no power, and they're too stupid to utilize the power they do have to any effect. Still it's effectively binding the legislative body, and they'll never pass such a resolution so as to bind themselves.

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[LandDolphin]

If the Founder Fathers wanted efficiency, they would not have created the federal system with a bicameral legislature. Stupid shit like this slowing down the process is there by design - to protect our rights. If government were efficient, they would just erode our rights faster.

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[Khyber]

Given the current state of the USA government, I am quite happy that they manage a deadlock instead of shit just getting pushed through like typical.

But it seems that out of the /. population, *YOU* don't tend to do shit about it, whereas I've been part of several counters against some of these bills being proposed.

Yes, I'm calling *YOU* out. Get off your ass and do something about it, or shut your mouth and let the rest of us bitch.

"glibtard principles."

Sounds like a RepubliCUNT to me.

Ridiculous all over

[jbmartin6]

There's no reason the amendments should be any less ridiculous than the bill itself.

Holding pattern until the election

[crazyjj]

At this point Congress is in a holding pattern until the election. You'd be lucky to get through a resolution expressing condolences to the Colorado shooting victims.

Precisely the problem.

[unr3a1]

This is one of the fundamental reasons why we have the issues we have. Including amendments or clauses that have absolutely nothing to do with the main content of the bill itself should not be allowed. It has historically and currently used to sneak in laws that are not openly discussed with the public in order to pass those laws without public knowledge. This is because they know it is harder to eliminate a law after it has passed than it is to block a law before it passes.

While arguments could be made that legitimate laws that should be passed would take too long to get passed, this ability is abuses far more frequently than being used for legitimate laws. And for that reason, things like this need to stop.

Who decides?

[PraiseBob]

And who decides if the amendment is related to the bill or not? The majority party? Luckily our congress would never act in a petty & partisan manner by randomly punishing their political opponents just because they can.

Re:kent brockman:

[Black Parrot]

i've said it before and i'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work.

It's worse than everything except everything else.

The best government would be an enlightened despot, but there's no way to me sure your despot stays enlightened. Nor to ensure the succession.

Nor to get everyone to agree on what 'enlightened' means.

Re:What would it take...

[Darkness404]

It wouldn't matter. The constitution is routinely ignored, there are so many laws on the books that its impossible to be sure that you are following them all.

Even if they did follow the constitution they'd use political doublespeak to prevent it from working as intended.

Re:What would it take...

[Millennium]

The problem is figuring out how to craft a law demanding that. What does it mean to be "relevant" to a bill's stated purpose? For that matter, how does one define the "stated purpose" of a bill?

Common-sense legislation is a nice idea, but it turns out that common sense is actually quite difficult to describe in a manner suitable for law. That goes double in common-law systems, where precedent becomes a law unto itself and so interpretation becomes extremely important.