The dirty little secret of TV news is that producers are the reporters. The people called reporters on television -- the people you see on camera -- typically stand where they're told, don't do the actual interviews, and oftentimes don't even write their own copy. They're essentially actors.
I've worked with on air talent who are very involved in the process, and that includes a lot of the folks at CNN. But to say that producers aren't journalists or reporters is incorrect.
Unfortunately when you're a traditional journalist, any public expression of opinion is about your job...
I feel bad for this gentleman for losing his day job, but, seriously, anybody who works in the mainstream media understands that your boss is quite likely to impose certain limitations on public expressions of your personal opinion. It was only a matter of time before something this guy wrote on his blog ticked off somebody enough that a critical resource would refuse to provide necessary information to CNN. If you think this is crazy, Linda Greenhouse, who covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times, has been under absolute siege just because of who she's married to: Eugene Fidell, an expert on military law who's filed a number of briefs relating to the Guantanamo detainees. Note that nobody has been screaming that Greenhouse is doing a bad job or presenting the facts about Guantanamo in a biased fashion; they're simply claiming that it's impossible for her to do so because she is married to somebody who's a player in that arena. (I should probably note both that Greenhouse is considered the best reporter covering the court, and that in 1989 she was publicly chastised by the NYT for participating in an abortion rights march).
So editors are generally pretty intolerant of reporters who mouth off in a public fashion. The idea is that it's hard enough to create a story that presents the positions of both sides fairly if you're already on the record as saying, for example, that you wish the President could run for a third term. Filtered through that gem, your otherwise fair representation of the positions of all sides might appear to be somewhat slanted.
I'm a little astounded that this fellow didn't adopt an online pseudonym...
The New York Times owns the International Herald Tribune, the big European daily published out of Paris, so nearly any significant general interest story that shows up the NYT is reprinted in the IHT (I've gotten dual bylines out of this arrangement myself; sadly, one paycheck). A great deal of the IHT copy is just stuff that was in the NYT. If Slashdot editors have a system of tracking stories by publication venue, they might want to make note of this...
Doesn't look like anything is available for free (that is, everything that was ever published in the Merc is available for a fee, but that means I can't just buy it and post it without violating copyright). I will drop Dan Gillmor a note to see if he ever mentioned it in his blogs...
About ten years ago, when I was covering the antitrust trial for the Mercury News, Microsoft's PR arm accidentally emailed me half of their internal database describing how they dealt with reporters and who each reporter's handler was and why. I looked at it, decided to be a nice guy, called the lady up and said, Hey, this isn't what I asked for, you sent the wrong stuff. So minutes later I get another email from her. This contains the *second* half of the confidential data base. Well, what could we do but make fun of them...
My point is MS cannot, in my opinion, resolve these issues unless they completely abandon their existing platform (I'm not talking about transitioning to NT; I'm talking about starting from scratch). In particular, the fundamental security flaws that exist in the Windows environment are there because, at the end of the day, any new version of Windows must have backward compatibility with applications designed for an OS that was never supposed to be networked. You will never be able to resolve issues like that with patches; you need to design security in to your system from the ground up. I have actually been at discussions with the folks at Microsoft in Redmond as part of my job, and they don't really disagree with this assessment, but they're not willing to walk away from their installed base to fix it...
I agree with you that Microsoft's entire business model is based on backward compatibility (you can't count on upgrade sales if your users have to replace all their applications). But this model has locked Microsoft into a death spiral; their code must become increasingly complex, cumbersome, and buggy to be able to guarantee that users can still run that package written for 3.11 in some fashion. Plus, the only real way for Microsoft to address its security issues is to completely rewrite their OS code.
I think Microsoft could solve this conundrum by taking a page from Apple's playbook. To make the transition to a unix environment practical for its users, Apple designed a "transition system" that allowed applications for its old OS to run in a virturalized environment. Now, Apple has a completely redesigned, rock-solid, relatively secure OS, and they did it without abandoning their customer base.
"Can firefox be locked down so users cannot add plug ins? As the article mentioned there isn't support for risk adverse let alone push services."
That's the real problem for me. I can't put FF on the list of products approved for general distribution out of fear that some dolt will blithely install a malevolent extension. Which is really a shame because FF + NoScript is awesome. As it is, I approve use of FF on a case by case basis, limiting it to people who have a history of following instructions...
I'm told that that there *is* a way to block installation of extensions and plug-ins, but it's labor intensive, and I frankly don't have the authority to obtain the labor required. So if that could be made easier, well, I think this could take off in a big way.
I think your analysis certainly identifies a factor, but I would suggest that the larger problem is this: media organizations are run by middle aged (or even old) white guys. They use a computer for email and Google; that's it. Online banking? Are you crazy?
Media coverage (outside the local level, where it's mired in "if if bleeds it leads") generally fits into the following cubbyholes: National (political) news, local (political) news, sports, and business. "Features" is everything from restaurant reviews to comics. Where exactly does coverage of computer security fit?
Yeah, I think of NBC as being owned by General Electric, but I think your point is well taken. Likewise Fox, a Murdoch company (although i don't even think of them as a news source). CNN and Time Warner, well, in my experience CNN operates as its own little fiefdom, but again, I see your point. But none of this explains only the Post among large papers covers computer security issues with any regularity.
Certainly possible. However, as a guy who spent over two decades producing content for media companies (although back in my day we used to call it writing for the newspaper) I never, ever had anybody stop me from writing something. Heck, I rarely had anybody telling me what to cover, since as the designated expert, I was the guy telling my bosses what was important. But do go on...
I can only think of a single large news organization whose parent company is a movie studio. Which ones are you thinking of?
Washington Post? No New York Times? No Los Angeles Times? No Wall Street Journal? Not until it was just bought by Murdoch..
CBS? No NBC? No ABC? Disney CNN? No
Which ones are you thinking of? The shareholder thing, well, maybe, but what evidence is there that this is true?
In fairness, I spent much of life as a journalist, and I did once encounter, late in my career, internal corporate objections to my position on intellectual property (for the record, I'm for it, so long as Fair Use remains available; my masters disagreed with the Fair Use obligation...).
It just amazes me that no other large news organization has a reporter devoted to covering this stuff full time, as Krebs does. Hell, Krebs isn't even part of the paper; he's attached to the Web site. I guess that says it all. Keep up the great work Brian.
Of course, then you have to be willing to forgo the miscreant's business by ordering anybody with an active cell phone outside. When I first researched this issue about six years ago, I found precisely nobody -- not restaurants, not the pharmacy, not even a freakin' movie theater -- would be willing to install a detector and order people off the property. The only places I know of that use detectors is hospitals, because some cells put out signals that interfere with things like an EEG.
Gave WebTV to my mom four years ago. The only technical support I've done is change the batteries in the wireless keyboard. Every few months I get a hysterical phone call, "I think my computer has a virus!" I tell her to hold on, open up a fresh Coke, pick up the phone and say I've taken care of it. She's thinks I'm a genius. And in a way, I suppose I am...
Hmm. Can't be subtle here. OK, the generally accepted theory for the decrease in violent crime over the past decade has been the general aging of the population; simply put, the more past 30 are, the less likely you are to commit violent crime, and the population of 30 and unders peaked in the Nineties (tail end of the baby boom) and has been declining ever since.
However...
I always like to use these graphs when I'm dealing with somebody who insists that something he abhors -- movies, television, music, videogames -- leads to an increase in violence in society. You're worried that more and more kids watch / do / use this stuff, I ask. "Exactly!", they say, "It's an epidemic and it's getting worse and worse!" And then you whip out your statistics from the DOJ and watch them flop on the rocks trying to explain why violent crime has been decreasing all the time whatever it is they're spun up about has been increasing.
There's no relationship to those numbers, at least none that I take seriously. It's just a correlation. Change one and you won't meaningfully affect the other.
You can make your own study. Lay out the line for violent crime rates in the United States (available from the United States Department of Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm ) Notice that the line peaks at around 1994, and then drops dramatically, declining by more than 50 per cent to 2005, the most recent figures available.
Then you need to gather data representing the share of people who play videogames (available from studies like this http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/75614.php ) over the years and draw a line that will go up.
If you lay those lines on top of one another, you'll notice that they are inversed, that is, the more people who play video games, the fewer violent crimes there are. Now, you can be safe and argue that this is merely a correlative argument (isn't this interesting?) or you can push it further and suggest that playing videogames may actually decrease the likelihood of people committing violent crime. How could that be? Well, maybe it's an outlet for aggression. Or maybe it's due to things like, if you're in a room playing videogames you're just less likely to amuse yourself doing things that will lead to a fight...
I stated repeatedly that I did not want the copper removed. First at the time of my initial contact, then when the called to make sure the schedule was still good, and then when the guys showed up for the install. Installer checked with supervisor, supervisor said no installation unless the copper was removed. I needed it, so I took the terms. So far, no negative repercussions, but I do worry about it.
I'm simply responding to the following statement: "Actually, unregulated industries tend to have better customer service... phone service and telecom is HIGHLY regulated..."
Leaving aside the issue of whether unregulated industries tend to have better customer service (a statement for which I can find a number of counterexamples, particularly the horrifically overregulated airline industry in the Seventies, when airfares were grotesquely expensive but there was quite a bit of sucking up to the customer, nearly all flights were pretty much direct, and the entire continent's air transport didn't shut down because of a thunderstorm over Boston) the claim that phone service and telecommunications companies in America are highly regulated is...well, highly regulated when compared to what, exactly? England, where consumers have to pay a tax to watch a TV? Japan, where the telephone company won't install your phone without proof that you've got your telephone license?
Plus, you can very easily make the counterargument, that regulatory requirements on the telecommunications industry have forced better customer service. For example, for years cell phone companies treated people badly and if you needed to keep your phone number, you were screwed, because you couldn't move that number to another carrier. After years of bullying by regulators, during which the carriers insisted that it was too technologically challenging, and would triple the costs of cell phone access (really, Verizon actually used to say that) number portability was enacted. Now, you can say that the the providers still treat you badly (though I would say that things are in fact better now than they were five years ago, since it's easier to walk away) but at least you can take your business elsewhere.
My point is that regulation is neither "good" nor "bad." Because there can be regulations that are either good or bad. Simple slogans about the miraculous properties of the free market or the intrinsic stupidity of government bureaucrats don't really answer any of my questions.
Having grown up in a era where airlines, power companies, gas companies, the telephone company (there was only one at the time) and the cable companies were all told exactly what they could charge for their services, and what sort of services they could offer, it's impossible for me to avoid laughing when I hear about the claim that such and such a business in the United States is highly regulated. There ain't no more highly regulated entities in these parts, pardner.
Flatly incorrect. It's not a myth, it's the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which modified the U.S. Code with regard to copyright law to specifically give consumers the right to make copies for themselves (and even give away a very limited number of copies to friends and / or family). Here's an analysis from Duke law school: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/200 2dltr0023.html
In general, your liability only exists when you *share* items. That is, all the legal actions by the RIAA / MPAA have alleged illegal distribution. Essentially, your behavior exposes you to legal action only when your behavior might negatively impact the market for an item. Arguably making yourself a copy of an item can deprive the owner of the item income, thus negatively impacting intellectual property owner. However, one can argue that in fact you would have never paid for the single copy, and therefore you haven't negatively impacted the IP owner at all. That's why photocopy machines / VCRs, etc. can exist. It's not because the IP owners don't mind, it's that they've (thus far) been unable to convince the courts that such copying negatively impacts their market.
Giving away copies, however, is a very different matter. No matter how "non-commercial" your activity is, if you give away enough of a product, you'll reduce the amount of money the IP owner can charge for the item, or put the IP owner out of business. So distribution gets you at the top of legal liability list.
Rereading my comment I sounded snottier than I'd intended. My apologies as well.
It's worth noting that thousands of bills are introduced into Congress each session, but few become law. In just 2006, for example, 4,753 bills were introduced in either the House or the Senate but only 248 were enacted into law. And many of those enacted were things like renaming post offices for a hometown hero, etc. The fact is, it's very hard, by design, to get laws enacted, but members of Congress usually introduce dozens of pieces of legislation each year, sometimes because they think it's the right thing to do. but oftentimes just to please a key supporter or group. Such bills often have no chance of becoming law.
So I'm actually reading the legislative action on this bill (through Thomas, provided by the link), and it doesn't appear as though there's been any kind of a vote on this. Am I, you know, missing something? Or does somebody not understand that a bill actually has to be voted on by each full chamber (both the House and the Senate) in an identical format, before it can be said that "Congress" has approved anything?
Slashdot Mirror
The dirty little secret of TV news is that producers are the reporters. The people called reporters on television -- the people you see on camera -- typically stand where they're told, don't do the actual interviews, and oftentimes don't even write their own copy. They're essentially actors.
I've worked with on air talent who are very involved in the process, and that includes a lot of the folks at CNN. But to say that producers aren't journalists or reporters is incorrect.
(Disclaimer: I too was once a producer at CNN)
Unfortunately when you're a traditional journalist, any public expression of opinion is about your job...
I feel bad for this gentleman for losing his day job, but, seriously, anybody who works in the mainstream media understands that your boss is quite likely to impose certain limitations on public expressions of your personal opinion. It was only a matter of time before something this guy wrote on his blog ticked off somebody enough that a critical resource would refuse to provide necessary information to CNN. If you think this is crazy, Linda Greenhouse, who covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times, has been under absolute siege just because of who she's married to: Eugene Fidell, an expert on military law who's filed a number of briefs relating to the Guantanamo detainees. Note that nobody has been screaming that Greenhouse is doing a bad job or presenting the facts about Guantanamo in a biased fashion; they're simply claiming that it's impossible for her to do so because she is married to somebody who's a player in that arena. (I should probably note both that Greenhouse is considered the best reporter covering the court, and that in 1989 she was publicly chastised by the NYT for participating in an abortion rights march).
So editors are generally pretty intolerant of reporters who mouth off in a public fashion. The idea is that it's hard enough to create a story that presents the positions of both sides fairly if you're already on the record as saying, for example, that you wish the President could run for a third term. Filtered through that gem, your otherwise fair representation of the positions of all sides might appear to be somewhat slanted.
I'm a little astounded that this fellow didn't adopt an online pseudonym...
Glossy black? :-)
The New York Times owns the International Herald Tribune, the big European daily published out of Paris, so nearly any significant general interest story that shows up the NYT is reprinted in the IHT (I've gotten dual bylines out of this arrangement myself; sadly, one paycheck). A great deal of the IHT copy is just stuff that was in the NYT. If Slashdot editors have a system of tracking stories by publication venue, they might want to make note of this...
Dano says he did blog about it, but that blog is down too. I will rummage around the Wayback machine at this point, as now I am curious too.
Doesn't look like anything is available for free (that is, everything that was ever published in the Merc is available for a fee, but that means I can't just buy it and post it without violating copyright). I will drop Dan Gillmor a note to see if he ever mentioned it in his blogs...
About ten years ago, when I was covering the antitrust trial for the Mercury News, Microsoft's PR arm accidentally emailed me half of their internal database describing how they dealt with reporters and who each reporter's handler was and why. I looked at it, decided to be a nice guy, called the lady up and said, Hey, this isn't what I asked for, you sent the wrong stuff. So minutes later I get another email from her. This contains the *second* half of the confidential data base. Well, what could we do but make fun of them...
My point is MS cannot, in my opinion, resolve these issues unless they completely abandon their existing platform (I'm not talking about transitioning to NT; I'm talking about starting from scratch). In particular, the fundamental security flaws that exist in the Windows environment are there because, at the end of the day, any new version of Windows must have backward compatibility with applications designed for an OS that was never supposed to be networked. You will never be able to resolve issues like that with patches; you need to design security in to your system from the ground up. I have actually been at discussions with the folks at Microsoft in Redmond as part of my job, and they don't really disagree with this assessment, but they're not willing to walk away from their installed base to fix it...
I agree with you that Microsoft's entire business model is based on backward compatibility (you can't count on upgrade sales if your users have to replace all their applications). But this model has locked Microsoft into a death spiral; their code must become increasingly complex, cumbersome, and buggy to be able to guarantee that users can still run that package written for 3.11 in some fashion. Plus, the only real way for Microsoft to address its security issues is to completely rewrite their OS code.
I think Microsoft could solve this conundrum by taking a page from Apple's playbook. To make the transition to a unix environment practical for its users, Apple designed a "transition system" that allowed applications for its old OS to run in a virturalized environment. Now, Apple has a completely redesigned, rock-solid, relatively secure OS, and they did it without abandoning their customer base.
"Can firefox be locked down so users cannot add plug ins? As the article mentioned there isn't support for risk adverse let alone push services."
That's the real problem for me. I can't put FF on the list of products approved for general distribution out of fear that some dolt will blithely install a malevolent extension. Which is really a shame because FF + NoScript is awesome. As it is, I approve use of FF on a case by case basis, limiting it to people who have a history of following instructions...
I'm told that that there *is* a way to block installation of extensions and plug-ins, but it's labor intensive, and I frankly don't have the authority to obtain the labor required. So if that could be made easier, well, I think this could take off in a big way.
I think your analysis certainly identifies a factor, but I would suggest that the larger problem is this: media organizations are run by middle aged (or even old) white guys. They use a computer for email and Google; that's it. Online banking? Are you crazy?
Media coverage (outside the local level, where it's mired in "if if bleeds it leads") generally fits into the following cubbyholes: National (political) news, local (political) news, sports, and business. "Features" is everything from restaurant reviews to comics. Where exactly does coverage of computer security fit?
Yeah, I think of NBC as being owned by General Electric, but I think your point is well taken. Likewise Fox, a Murdoch company (although i don't even think of them as a news source). CNN and Time Warner, well, in my experience CNN operates as its own little fiefdom, but again, I see your point. But none of this explains only the Post among large papers covers computer security issues with any regularity.
Certainly possible. However, as a guy who spent over two decades producing content for media companies (although back in my day we used to call it writing for the newspaper) I never, ever had anybody stop me from writing something. Heck, I rarely had anybody telling me what to cover, since as the designated expert, I was the guy telling my bosses what was important. But do go on...
I can only think of a single large news organization whose parent company is a movie studio. Which ones are you thinking of?
Washington Post? No
New York Times? No
Los Angeles Times? No
Wall Street Journal? Not until it was just bought by Murdoch..
CBS? No
NBC? No
ABC? Disney
CNN? No
Which ones are you thinking of? The shareholder thing, well, maybe, but what evidence is there that this is true?
In fairness, I spent much of life as a journalist, and I did once encounter, late in my career, internal corporate objections to my position on intellectual property (for the record, I'm for it, so long as Fair Use remains available; my masters disagreed with the Fair Use obligation...).
It just amazes me that no other large news organization has a reporter devoted to covering this stuff full time, as Krebs does. Hell, Krebs isn't even part of the paper; he's attached to the Web site. I guess that says it all. Keep up the great work Brian.
If you don't want a cell phone active in your establishment, what you want is not a jammer, which is illegal, but a detector...
http://www.cellbusters.com/product_info.php?products_id=28
Of course, then you have to be willing to forgo the miscreant's business by ordering anybody with an active cell phone outside. When I first researched this issue about six years ago, I found precisely nobody -- not restaurants, not the pharmacy, not even a freakin' movie theater -- would be willing to install a detector and order people off the property. The only places I know of that use detectors is hospitals, because some cells put out signals that interfere with things like an EEG.
Gave WebTV to my mom four years ago. The only technical support I've done is change the batteries in the wireless keyboard. Every few months I get a hysterical phone call, "I think my computer has a virus!" I tell her to hold on, open up a fresh Coke, pick up the phone and say I've taken care of it. She's thinks I'm a genius. And in a way, I suppose I am...
Hmm. Can't be subtle here. OK, the generally accepted theory for the decrease in violent crime over the past decade has been the general aging of the population; simply put, the more past 30 are, the less likely you are to commit violent crime, and the population of 30 and unders peaked in the Nineties (tail end of the baby boom) and has been declining ever since.
However...
I always like to use these graphs when I'm dealing with somebody who insists that something he abhors -- movies, television, music, videogames -- leads to an increase in violence in society. You're worried that more and more kids watch / do / use this stuff, I ask. "Exactly!", they say, "It's an epidemic and it's getting worse and worse!" And then you whip out your statistics from the DOJ and watch them flop on the rocks trying to explain why violent crime has been decreasing all the time whatever it is they're spun up about has been increasing.
There's no relationship to those numbers, at least none that I take seriously. It's just a correlation. Change one and you won't meaningfully affect the other.
You can make your own study. Lay out the line for violent crime rates in the United States (available from the United States Department of Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/viort.htm )
p ) over the years and draw a line that will go up.
Notice that the line peaks at around 1994, and then drops dramatically, declining by more than 50 per cent to 2005, the most recent figures available.
Then you need to gather data representing the share of people who play videogames (available from studies like this http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/75614.ph
If you lay those lines on top of one another, you'll notice that they are inversed, that is, the more people who play video games, the fewer violent crimes there are. Now, you can be safe and argue that this is merely a correlative argument (isn't this interesting?) or you can push it further and suggest that playing videogames may actually decrease the likelihood of people committing violent crime. How could that be? Well, maybe it's an outlet for aggression. Or maybe it's due to things like, if you're in a room playing videogames you're just less likely to amuse yourself doing things that will lead to a fight...
I stated repeatedly that I did not want the copper removed. First at the time of my initial contact, then when the called to make sure the schedule was still good, and then when the guys showed up for the install. Installer checked with supervisor, supervisor said no installation unless the copper was removed. I needed it, so I took the terms. So far, no negative repercussions, but I do worry about it.
I'm simply responding to the following statement:
"Actually, unregulated industries tend to have better customer service... phone service and telecom is HIGHLY regulated..."
Leaving aside the issue of whether unregulated industries tend to have better customer service (a statement for which I can find a number of counterexamples, particularly the horrifically overregulated airline industry in the Seventies, when airfares were grotesquely expensive but there was quite a bit of sucking up to the customer, nearly all flights were pretty much direct, and the entire continent's air transport didn't shut down because of a thunderstorm over Boston) the claim that phone service and telecommunications companies in America are highly regulated is...well, highly regulated when compared to what, exactly? England, where consumers have to pay a tax to watch a TV? Japan, where the telephone company won't install your phone without proof that you've got your telephone license?
Plus, you can very easily make the counterargument, that regulatory requirements on the telecommunications industry have forced better customer service. For example, for years cell phone companies treated people badly and if you needed to keep your phone number, you were screwed, because you couldn't move that number to another carrier. After years of bullying by regulators, during which the carriers insisted that it was too technologically challenging, and would triple the costs of cell phone access (really, Verizon actually used to say that) number portability was enacted. Now, you can say that the the providers still treat you badly (though I would say that things are in fact better now than they were five years ago, since it's easier to walk away) but at least you can take your business elsewhere.
My point is that regulation is neither "good" nor "bad." Because there can be regulations that are either good or bad. Simple slogans about the miraculous properties of the free market or the intrinsic stupidity of government bureaucrats don't really answer any of my questions.
Having grown up in a era where airlines, power companies, gas companies, the telephone company (there was only one at the time) and the cable companies were all told exactly what they could charge for their services, and what sort of services they could offer, it's impossible for me to avoid laughing when I hear about the claim that such and such a business in the United States is highly regulated. There ain't no more highly regulated entities in these parts, pardner.
Flatly incorrect. It's not a myth, it's the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which modified the U.S. Code with regard to copyright law to specifically give consumers the right to make copies for themselves (and even give away a very limited number of copies to friends and / or family). Here's an analysis from Duke law school: http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dltr/articles/200 2dltr0023.html
In general, your liability only exists when you *share* items. That is, all the legal actions by the RIAA / MPAA have alleged illegal distribution. Essentially, your behavior exposes you to legal action only when your behavior might negatively impact the market for an item. Arguably making yourself a copy of an item can deprive the owner of the item income, thus negatively impacting intellectual property owner. However, one can argue that in fact you would have never paid for the single copy, and therefore you haven't negatively impacted the IP owner at all. That's why photocopy machines / VCRs, etc. can exist. It's not because the IP owners don't mind, it's that they've (thus far) been unable to convince the courts that such copying negatively impacts their market.
Giving away copies, however, is a very different matter. No matter how "non-commercial" your activity is, if you give away enough of a product, you'll reduce the amount of money the IP owner can charge for the item, or put the IP owner out of business. So distribution gets you at the top of legal liability list.
Rereading my comment I sounded snottier than I'd intended. My apologies as well.
It's worth noting that thousands of bills are introduced into Congress each session, but few become law. In just 2006, for example, 4,753 bills were introduced in either the House or the Senate but only 248 were enacted into law. And many of those enacted were things like renaming post offices for a hometown hero, etc. The fact is, it's very hard, by design, to get laws enacted, but members of Congress usually introduce dozens of pieces of legislation each year, sometimes because they think it's the right thing to do. but oftentimes just to please a key supporter or group. Such bills often have no chance of becoming law.
So I'm actually reading the legislative action on this bill (through Thomas, provided by the link), and it doesn't appear as though there's been any kind of a vote on this. Am I, you know, missing something? Or does somebody not understand that a bill actually has to be voted on by each full chamber (both the House and the Senate) in an identical format, before it can be said that "Congress" has approved anything?