
The U.S. Senate has blocked the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. - Empro
http://www.zdnet.com/senate-blocks-cybersecurity-act-7000002051/
======
jacoblyles
It's weird to see the ACLU and the senate Republicans teaming up to block this
against the senate Democrats. Positions on executive power completely switch
with the party of the Presidency.

~~~
tytso
It's weird. I normally am very much more sympathetic to the policy positions
of the Democrats (i.e., in terms of gay marriage, taxes, health care, etc.).
However, the Democrats have allied themselves far too deeply with Hollywood,
and since they are in power, they are obviously carrying water for the FBI and
NSA --- which explains the SOPA and Cybersecurity laws. So for those issues,
for me it's "Go Republicans!"

I do worry what might happen if long run the Tea Party with its populist
message becomes the anti-SOPA, anti-Hollywood, maybe even anti-Wall Street
Banks party, and the Democrats feel that they need to get their campaign $$$
from Hollywood and Wall Street.

One of the downsides of a two-party system, I suppose...

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Tea Party is not populist.

~~~
jacoblyles
My liberal friends have picked up the idea that the Tea Party is a
conservative front organization, "astroturf" designed to fool the media into
thinking that right-wing ideas have a popular following. But this narrative is
straight-up BS. Dozens of GOP candidates with establishment backing,
endorsements, and money have been defeated by Tea Party insurgents in primary
races as high up as the senate. It's a bona-fide populist movement that traces
its roots to a Ron Paul "Tea Party" moneybomb in 2007. Tea Party activists
contributed to the historic landslide in the 2010 elections. And it is still
alive and kicking. A GOP insider candidate for the Senate in Texas, endorsed
by Rick Perry no less, was defeated by a Tea Partier a few days ago.

There is chaos in the GOP because the people are revolting and not voting like
they're told, and it is the tea party that is doing it. Maybe you don't know
any Tea Partiers where you live, but they are a true grass-roots force.

~~~
sshumaker
Well, except for the fact that they're heavily bankrolled by über-wealthy
conservatives (Koch brothers, etc).

~~~
mseebach
The presence of money is a matter of fact of US politics - it can't, on it's
own, be used as an argument for or against any particular movement being
legitimate or not.

------
DanielBMarkham
Yay gridlock!

Interesting how one week it's a bug, the next week it's a feature.

~~~
lukev
I believe the US government was designed that way on purpose.

An efficient government can be a scary thing.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
You are correct. Madison specifically put in circuit breakers to prevent the
mob swinging wildly one way one month, then wildly another way the next.

To the degree that politicians have circumvented these circuit breakers, we're
turning the system more into a winner-takes-all soundbite/24-hour-news-cycle
fight.

It's a feature. My (subtle?) point was that when gridlock comes up most people
have no idea what they're talking about. Usually "gridlock" just means "my
guys are being thwarted by the other guys! That sucks!"

~~~
Steko
This is revisionist nonsense. There are certain things that supermajorities
are required for but the regular business of the Senate was never intended to
be part of that. The current reliance on supermajorities is beyond
unprecedented in US history and gets worse every decade.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_in_the_United_States_Senate)

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Clo...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Cloture_Voting%2C_United_States_Senate%2C_1947_to_2008.svg/480px-
Cloture_Voting%2C_United_States_Senate%2C_1947_to_2008.svg.png)

What did James Madison and Hamilton actually think of Polish Diet style
supermajorities?

Matt Yglesias directs us to Federalist 17 (Madison with Hamilton):

[http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/28/198661/liberum-...](http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/28/198661/liberum-
veto/)

Ezra Klein directs us to Federalist 75 (Hamilton):

[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-
klein/2010/01/the_poli...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-
klein/2010/01/the_polish_dietization_of_amer.html)

~~~
jackfoxy
Article 1 Section 5

 _Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings..._

There are no footnotes in the constitution.

~~~
Steko
I'm not sure what your point is, I've not claimed footnotes to the
Constitution. We do have this thing called the Congressional Record and it's
got the rules of each house from each Congress and shows how they have been
applied over the years and so we can see how often supermajorities were
required for normal business and during the founders time is was practically
nonexistent and today it is distressingly common.

~~~
jackfoxy
>This is revisionist nonsense. There are certain things that supermajorities
are required for but the regular business of the Senate was never intended...

Actually I believe pretty strongly in _original intent_ as spelled-out in the
Constitution. The original intent was and is that each House gets to determine
their own rules. That does not mean the rules never change after the first
Congress met.

~~~
Steko
Your replies seem like great responses to someone claiming that holds and
filibusters and the like are unconstitutional.

Unfortunately for you _I am not making that argument_.

I am claiming that today's level of gridlock was neither intended by the
founders (who left us more then the Constitution as it turns out) nor healthy
for our country (cf Poland).

~~~
jackfoxy
>I am claiming that today's level of gridlock was neither intended by the
founders ... nor healthy for our country...

That's fair.

But first a step back. I think the real weak link in the HN culture is to be
at its best, we must thoughtfully compose HN comments. The more nuanced and
deep the subject matter, the more time it takes to compose thoughtful,
valuable content, and the longer that composition must be, often being an
essay on its own. That's time taken from the rest of our lives. I'm as guilty
as anyone, more guilty than some, of attempting to pack more meaning into less
time with pithy, succinct replies. Of course this tactic is counterproductive
and only diminishes the conversation.

To your point: at the time or our nation's founding, there was only one social
question in the political realm, slavery. Yes, there was also demagoguing
about the Revolutionary War debt, and taxing distilled spirits affected some
socio-economic groups more than others, but by and large the People expected
the Federal government to decide matters of State, war and peace, Indian
affairs, tariffs, and (most importantly) any legislation requiring expenditure
also made provisions for meeting the expenditure.

Freedom of the Press literally meant 18th century movable type. Jefferson was
free to concoct lies about Hamilton behind the cloak of anonymity, but it took
some time to spread, and Congress, by and large, could deliberate at its
leisure the few affairs in actually had to decide.

Gradually (after the overriding social affair in politics blew-up into the
Civil War) more _social_ questions came into political consideration: womens'
suffrage, the ten, then eight-hour work day, worker safety, product safety,
civil rights...much of these social improvements held to be either under the
umbrella of the _regulating commerce_ clause, or the 14th Amendment.

Then some really big changes crept in, almost unnoticed. First the income tax,
which was sold as only applying to the ultra-rich. In very short order it
applied to everyone, and eventually in a crafty accounting trick it became a
_withholding_ tax instead of a tax you have to go through the pain of paying.
Just as significantly, sometime around WWI (if I recall correctly) Congress
changed the rules so all expenditures roll-up into one (or a handful, I'm
fuzzy on exactly how it works) appropriations bill. Now Congress is free to
pass out social goods without paying for them.

The evolution from the hassle of movable type to the 24-hour always on news
cycle does not need elaboration, but I will observe that frequently the info-
tainment industry couches every emotion-laden problem imaginable in terms of
the the government must/should/can _do something about this_.

So now we live in an age where every conceivable issue can be considered for
legislation, and _always-on_ sources of information/propaganda compete for the
public's, the beurocrat's, and the legislature's attention. So is it really a
good idea to ramrod every item the legislature considers through on a 51-49
vote? Tomorrow the count could easily be reversed. There's often emotional
appeal made to social legislation of the past (worker safety, civil rights,
etc.) and that _not_ going forward with whatever social legislation beign
considered today will somehow reverse all the good accomplished in the past,
but I submit that on the margin, the increase in _good_ achieved by these past
examples was great. When there is no limit to what can be considered by the
legislature, then many things will come up for which the realistic increase of
_good_ on the margin is small...and the unintended cosequensces are unknown.

------
guelo
Notice that this was a battle between pro-business/anti-regulation forces and
military/police-state forces. The interests of internet users was, as usual,
completely irrelevant.

~~~
jacoblyles
It's easier for small groups to organize than widely disperse ones. See
Buchanan/Tullock/Olson. That's why the general interest tends to lose out in
Democracy to special interests.

~~~
WiseWeasel
That failure is not limited to democracy. It's a consequence of the barriers
separating government officials from other people, including centralized
information media (to which government officials have much better access than
citizens) and in the case of democracy, the high cost of running an election
campaign, inescapably making the pursuit of money from special interests the
primary concern for elected officials.

The former barrier is being eroded as people have better access to and
influence over the public forum. The latter remains a contentious issue to
resolve.

------
cyber
They were starting to pile on completely unrelated riders, it needed to go
regardless of the contents.

~~~
malandrew
I'm starting to think that completely unrelated riders may be far more
effective than filibustering. Don't like a proposed law? Pad it with enough
crap until everyone thinks it stinks.

~~~
chipser
Killing a bill with unpopular amendments is indeed a time-honored tradition in
legislatures everywhere.

~~~
caf
I'm not so sure. In most legislatures, if you have the numbers to move an
unpopular amendment, you also have the numbers to defeat the original bill.

------
techinsidr
Probably because our sketchy senators tried to sneak gun control and abortion
amendments into the cybersecurity bill:

[http://www.securityweek.com/gun-abortion-amendments-stall-
se...](http://www.securityweek.com/gun-abortion-amendments-stall-senate-
cybersecurity-bill)

------
Jgrubb
Am I to understand that the reason this bill was blocked was because Obama was
for it, thus the Republicans' only move was to block it from coming up for a
vote? What kind of bassackwards country am I living in??

~~~
cyber
The kind that has abortion and firearms clauses in a "Cyber Security" bill.

------
ericson578
yay the government protected us again from the government. oh wait...

------
nateabele
The sad thing is, Republicans probably only voted this down to spite
president, but Democrats... seriously? What the hell are you doing on the
wrong side of your own party platform?

~~~
385668
Probably they're listening to the online campaign against the bill. Hundreds
of thousands (millions?) have been writing in petitions urging their
congresspersons to vote against it. It does seem weird to be agreeing with the
GOP though.

------
maeon3
Where can I see a list of all the unrelated riders added to this cybersecurity
act? I heard utah senator was trying to get a ban on abortion in there. What i
want is github for all these sneaky slithery little laws that make it through
the house and senate onto the books. It's so bad now, I don't even know what
the law is, it's changing back and forth so fast. It's making everyone a
criminal, even retroactively!

Drugs.. Legal! Illegal! Abortion.. Legal! Illegal! Copying a floppy, owning a
lobster, downloading a file, braiding hair without a license, filming a cop.

I don't know american law and I live here.

~~~
_delirium
The full text is here (pdf):
[http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s3414pcs/pdf/BILLS-112...](http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s3414pcs/pdf/BILLS-112s3414pcs.pdf)

No abortion in the final voted-on text, but you appear to be correct on the
proposed amendment. Digging through the bowels of thomas.loc.gov, it looks
like, somewhat bizarrely, Mike Lee (R-UT) proposed an amendment to the
cybersecurity bill that would restrict abortion in Washington, D.C., under the
federal government's legislative authority for the federal district:

> _SA 2716. Mr. LEE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to
> the bill S. 3414, to enhance the security and resiliency of the cyber and
> communications infrastructure of the United States; which was ordered to lie
> on the table; as follows:_

> _At the appropriate place, insert the following:_

> _SEC. __X. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PAIN-CAPABLE UNBORN CHILD PROTECTION ACT._

> _(a) Short Title.--This section may be cited as the ``District of Columbia
> Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act''._

> _(b) Legislative Findings.--Congress finds and declares the following:_

> _(1) Pain receptors (nociceptors) are present throughout the unborn child's
> entire body and nerves link these receptors to the brain's thalamus and
> subcortical plate by no later than 20 weeks after fertilization._

etc.

~~~
roc
1\. The text wasn't voted on. The vote to stop talking about the issue and
actually hold the vote on the text, failed.

2\. It's not at all bizarre to see a Republican attach an abortion restriction
onto a bill they want to kill.

~~~
Wohlf
The fact that it's allowed at all is pretty fucking bizarre. Wasn't there a
bill going through to make bills only have one law/subject?

~~~
385668
It's been attempted before, but that kind of thing is really hard to legislate
effectively. At what point is something tangentially related? True, gun
control and abortion bills should probably be kept separate, but what about
closing the gun show loophole and also requiring conceal carry permits to have
interviews? They're both about guns, but not the same issue relating to guns.
It isn't really feasible, and even if it were, both parties like to pull the
amend a bill to hell trick.

