So the House passed a new “cyber security” bill called the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation would give employers and the government pretty much unlimited access to your personal cyber stuff without your knowing about it. ZDNet calls it “more heinous than SOPA.”
The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crimeâ€. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all
Naturally, this thing was rammed through the House mostly by the Republicans. You know, those same people who are eternally screaming about the evils of Big Gubmint and how trying to get more Americans covered by health insurance is an assault on our Freedoms.
To be fair, 42 Democrats joined 206 Republicans in voting “yes,” and 28 Republicans joined the Dems in voting “no,” which in the minds of many progressives is proof that one party is just as bad as the other.
Now, here’s the really rich part: President Obama is threatening to veto this monster, and House Speaker Orange Julius Boehner claimed that this means President Obama wants to “control the Internet.” Seriously.
All together now: Freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. What today’s GOP is all about.
The White House said,
“CISPA would trample the privacy and consumer rights of our citizens while leaving our critical infrastructure vulnerable.”
Sounds like the perfect Republican bill.
How this will fly in the Senate I do not know. The Senate bill is being co-authored by Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, which does not reassure me.
The roll call results are interesting, I see that my blue-rat congressman voted for it, though many of the tea-bagger types voted against it? I suspect it will get watered down a bit and pass, president Obama hasn’t really issued a veto threat the white house said “his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill†that sounds a little weak to me and may be fight he won’t want during campaign season? Also unlike SOPA and PIPA there are no real moneyed interests on either side of this fight, mostly just those pesky civil libertarians representing the help!
Lieberman and Collins?
OY!
Why can’t it be Sanders and Franken?
Why the whiny, nasal-talking twins?
Because a fake Independent, and a fake moderate Republican, will give it the Broder-seal of approval? I thought to get that, they’d have to find some dumbass Democrat (like Manchin), to give it that old school, bipartisany, buttery, goodness?
And yes, Obama says he’ll veto it, and I believe it.
But let’s face it, the next time we have a R President, with a R Congress, any last semblance of personal privacy will be as dead as Breitbart, as extinct as the dodo.
But hey, as long as you’re not doing anything wrong, what have you got to worry about, right?
Check this picture out, classic stuff!
uncledad,
LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cund, I agree someone should make a T-shirt!
I always wished I’d marketed my t-shirt/bumper-sticker slogan back before the ’04 election:
“Bush and Dick: No Wonder We’re F*cked!”
I have another one if Mitt chooses Ryan as his VP:
“Mitt and Paul, together: Like the Centerpiece of a December-June Gay Wedding Cake.”
Gulag, your ideas are too good to let them go to waste.
Alan Grayson has a contest going that may be right up your alley. http://www.congressmanwithguts.com/your campaign.
muldoon,
I tried to go there – page not found.
I’ll try to look for it, I’ve got some errands to run.
oops. Screwed that up.
http://www.congressmanwithguts.com/yourcampaign
Something no one has pointed out – if the Internet becomes vulnerable in terms of online payments for monthly bills – (mortgage, car payment, electric, water, phone) people will resort to (gasp) paper checks and the US Mail.
A little research into some of the pranks that the group ‘Anonymous’ has pulled off has to make you wonder if chaos and bedlam in Internet transactions might not be pretty easy for some of these guys. While I don’t pretend to be unbiased, perhaps downsizing the USPS to a ‘streamlined’ system that will be incapable of handling a sudden influx of critical mail isn’t a really good idea.
That’s pretty much all I would need to know about a bill to know I’m against it.
“Hokey Smokes, Bullwinkle!!!”
Sit down, so you don’t fall down and hurt yourselves – The Washington Post commits an act of journalism:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html
It’s written by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, two well-placed, long-term, DC insiders. You know, the ones who always say “Both sides do it!”
NOT THIS TIME – they place the blame squarely on the Republicans.
I know, I can’t believe it myself.
Maybe there’s still some hope for the MSM?
Probably not – but it’s nice to see that two entrenched DC dogs finally “get it!”
Hopefully, it’s a start.
Oh, and they tell other “journalists” to cut the crap, and write who’s REALLY at fault, and not the usual ‘he said/she said crap.’
How did this piece sneak by Fred Hiatt?
Was he drunk?
Is he dead?
What has someone done to Fred Hiatt?
And no, we don’t want him back the way he was!
David Broder is spinning in his grave faster than an atom in a particle accelerator!