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

[Zobeid]

Those who love sausage and respect the law shouldn't watch either being made.

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

[ganjadude]

And the bill to get that passed would have 100 amendments having nothing to do with outlawing amendments!

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[Jessified]

It's not absurd. If you cyberRTFA you'll see that they are talking about cyberabortions of cyberpregrancies, cybergunreform and cyber-repealing of cyberhealthcare.

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

[cayenne8]

For the most part...I am the happiest with congress when the best they can manage is gridlock.

That just means they aren't passing more useless laws to infringe on my privacy, curb my rights, or charge me more money.

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

This was one that the Confederate States got right:

Article I, Section 9(20): Every law or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.[17]

Too bad that one was never incorporated.

Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd

[Hartree]

"As far as I know, no other country does this ludicrous crap"

You haven't studied many other countries legislatures much, then. Look up things like the cow walk in Japan and some of the shenanigans where fistfights break out various legislatures.

What about Belgium when it couldn't even form a government for a year and a half? They finally did late last year.

What about the long term period of the Italian government of the month that went on for decades?

What about India two years ago when they only managed to pass 4 whole bills in one session?

I'm not saying the US congres is good, it's just not the only one that does this.

Ridiculous all over

[jbmartin6]

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

the bill already failed, what is this article abou

[Anonymous Coward]

??? the bill failed a vote on the senate floor minutes ago

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cybersecurity-act-fails-to-pass-in-the-senate-20120802,0,1649471.story

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.

Re:bill itself

[TaoPhoenix]

Well, here's the summary links to the bill itself.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.2105:

I'm a little out of my depth but "comprehensive legislation" these days makes me nervous that there aren't sneaky things in there.

What would it take...

[Antipater]

What would we need to do to make this kind of shit illegal? A law? A constitutional amendment? I don't think it would be too hard to get 2/3 of Americans to agree that any amendment or rider to a bill should be relevant to that bill's stated purpose.

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.

Re:What would it take...

[JDG1980]

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?

But the same thing applies to many parts of the existing Constitution. What constitutes a "reasonable search"? What kind of punishments are "cruel and unusual"? And so forth. The answer, in practice, is that the federal courts decide these things. If there was a Constitutional amendment barring irrelevant additions to bills, the deterrent to Congress would presumably be that the addendum could be thrown out by the courts and therefore there would be no point in trying to pass it. Even if the benefit of the doubt was given to the legislature in corner cases, the most blatant abuses like the ones mentioned in this article might be avoided.

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:Who decides?

[Antipater]

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.

Believe it or not, Congress is not made up only of Congressmen. There are various nonpartisan offices whose job is to analyze everything brought to them - for example, the Congressional Budget Office. This could just create the Congressional Relevance Office.

Re:Who decides?

[Antipater]

Extra info on the leadership positions. Possible to be corrupt, but difficult.

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.

One Subject at a Time Act

[Rinisari]

This is a great reminder to contact your Representative and ask them to support the latest iteration of the H.R. 3806 One Subject at a Time Act in the House and Sen. Paul's version S. 3359 One Subject at a Time Act in the Senate. Both bills are endorsed by DownsizeDC, which is one of the originators of the idea, according to their site.

Re:the bill already failed

[MagicM]

Looks like you're right. The bill was reintroduced as S.3414 which was voted on and rejected a few hours ago.

Re:Has there ever been a high capacity clip?

[artor3]

In fairness to the Senator, the amendment bans "transfer or possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices". It's the reporter who doesn't know a clip from a magazine.

It's actually a pitifully toothless law, as it excludes any extended magazines already in existence in the country. It would take decades to have any effect. Not that it has any chance of passing in the first place.