House cyber bill protects privacy, civil liberties while addressing threat

By Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) and Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) - 04/18/13 05:00 PM ET

Cyber espionage and warfare pose a grave threat to our nation. Foreign countries such as China and Iran are conducting massive cyber attacks and espionage campaigns on the United States, disrupting our networks and stealing our trade secrets. In both open and classified briefings, we hear far too often about the loss of American companies’ corporate trade secrets and the jobs that go along with them. Although our nation is vulnerable to serious damage from cyber attacks, we do not have to concede this fight, nor should we wait for a crippling incident to act. It is imperative that we safeguard our networks from foreign hackers while still protecting Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.

Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 624, the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Act (CISPA), a bipartisan effort led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger. It addresses these dangerous cyber threats while preserving and prioritizing both privacy and security equally.

Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Ruppersberger made clear from when they first started drafting this bill a year and a half ago that they were open to constructive ideas to improve it. As a result, privacy groups, members of Congress, and a variety of private sector companies and organizations accepted their offer, and CISPA was amended and improved through tightening the bill’s language and definitions, adding privacy protections, and including important oversight mechanisms to ensure that the bill’s authorities are always used properly.

Before it went to the floor, the committee voted unanimously to strike the government’s national security use exception from the legislation to address the concern of privacy groups who were fearful of misuse of information under the guise of national security. There was also an amendment creating a five-year expiration of the legislation to allow for adequate review of provisions in the future. Nevertheless, some continue to misunderstand CISPA, and we urge those with remaining concerns to read this important bill carefully.

Countries such as China, Russia, and Iran have already hacked the networks of American companies holding sensitive information about American customers. Hackers working for organized crime networks in Russia and Eastern Europe are working around the clock to break into networks containing Americans’ private banking information including credit card numbers and other account information. They can steal American corporate trade secrets, such as blueprints for innovative products under development, and competitive bid information for business transactions that could create new American jobs. Hackers working for Chinese Intelligence services have infiltrated American media outlets and think tanks which publish content critical of the Chinese government to determine the identity of our reporters’ sources in order to punish and imprison them. 

As CISPA advances to the Senate, we must not let misplaced fears about the bill’s authorities prevent us from addressing the severe threat posed by advanced, foreign cyber threats.

If it becomes law, CISPA will strengthen our cybersecurity, improve our ability to defend American networks and our sensitive data, and continue to protect our privacy and civil liberties. But all of this is only possible if we successfully dispel the false rumors surrounding CISPA and educate the public about the improvements this bill has undergone since its introduction. We come from two very different political parties and disagree on many issues, but we both believe this bill is critical for our nation and hope to see is become law very soon.

Peters represents California’s 52nd Congressional District. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Jenkins represents Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. She is the vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.

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Rand Paul Falsely Says He Never Opposed The Civil Rights Act

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964's bans on whites-only lunch counters and discrimination by private employers. We know this because there are multiple videos of him opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964's bans on whites-only lunch counters and discrimination by private employers. Here’s video of him saying it to a Kentucky paper’s editorial board. Here’s a lengthy interview where he tries to defend his opposition to the Civil Rights Act to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. Here’s video from just last year of him defending his father’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act (according to Rand Paul, “it’s not all about race relations, it’s about controlling property, ultimately.”) Still don’t believe that Paul opposes the Civil Rights Act? You can watch this embedded video of Paul saying that “the hard part about believing in freedom” is that you have to oppose the Civil Rights Act:

Nor is this a particularly new position for Sen. Paul. In a 2002 letter to his hometown newspaper, Paul wrote that “[a] free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination – even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.”

So it is a bit baffling that Paul told an audience at the historically black Howard University today that he actually believes something else:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a proponent of civil liberties, told a professor on Wednesday that he never opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“I’ve never been against the Civil Rights Act. Ever,” he said during a question and answer session at the historically black Howard University in Washington.

“This was on tape,” countered the questioner.

“I have been concerned about the ramifications of the Civil Rights Act beyond race…but I’ve never come out in opposition,” Paul clarified.

Again, Paul has never said that he is “concerned about the ramifications of the Civil Rights Act beyond race.” He’s said — repeatedly, over a period of many years, and sometimes on video — that he opposes applying federal civil rights law to private businesses, such as the private business where this picture was taken:

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Debate:Was the North right to prevent Southern secession in the US Civil War?

(Difference between revisions)Yes, because if the divine hand of God wanted the South to secede, he would not have let the North win. -- [[User talk:RobinHoodjr|RobinHoodjr]]Yes, the North was justified in preventing the South from seceding from the Union.  What is the point of having a government if any state can choose to leave whenever they feel like it?  Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not about slavery.  Slavery may have been the main issue the South seceded for, but the North went to war solely to preserve the Union.  That reason is as good as any to go to war.  Sure, slavery as an agricultural and economic base was outdated and on the way out, but slavery as a social structure was as strong as ever, as evidenced by the formation of white-supremecist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.  True, the Confederate States may have eventually rejoined the United States after slavery had run its course, but the Federal government can not afford to set the precedent of letting whoever wants to leave cease to be part of the Union.Yes, the North was justified in preventing the South from seceding from the Union.  What is the point of having a government if any state can choose to leave whenever they feel like it?  Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not about slavery.  Slavery may have been the main issue the South seceded for, but the North went to war solely to preserve the Union.  That reason is as good as any to go to war.  Sure, slavery as an agricultural and economic base was outdated and on the way out, but slavery as a social structure was as strong as ever, as evidenced by the formation of white-supremecist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.  True, the Confederate States may have eventually rejoined the United States after slavery had run its course, but the Federal government can not afford to set the precedent of letting whoever wants to leave cease to be part of the Union.

No, the South had the right to choose for themselves whether they should be American states or not. Yes, slavery was horrible but things were already changing and that was not the Union's choice to make. The goings on in Columbia, Nashville, Baton Rouge, and Austin were not the business of anyone in Washington, no matter if it's 1861 or 2007/ --Working for Him 20:48, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Excellent debate topic, and I see reasons to agree but on a different basis. Abraham Lincoln himself felt that the South could leave and the United States would inevitably reunite a few decades later (without slavery). Why push it and kill so many people just to avoid a few decades of separation? There are limits to what force can accomplish.--Aschlafly 21:01, 7 February 2007 (EST)

This is a tough issue; any other time i'd say no without a second thought, but it seems hard to justify turning the other way and allowing slavery to continue in the south. --BenjaminS 01:16, 18 February 2007 (EST)

I don’t believe Lincoln or others had a right to prevent secession. The only reason some States finally decided to sign the agreement to form a Union was because of their right to secede. From what I understand, the initial problem was the treatment of Southern states by Northern businessmen who used laws and government to cheat the South of fair trade and apply unfair taxation. If those issues were resolved, I doubt the South would have pursued secession. This debate is thoroughly addressed in Thomas DiLorenzo’s book, “The Real Lincoln”. The author also contends that slavery would most likely have been resolved in time by other means. --Maxygolf 11:58, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, because if the divine hand of God wanted the South to secede, he would not have let the North win. -- RobinHoodjr

Yes, the North was justified in preventing the South from seceding from the Union. What is the point of having a government if any state can choose to leave whenever they feel like it? Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was not about slavery. Slavery may have been the main issue the South seceded for, but the North went to war solely to preserve the Union. That reason is as good as any to go to war. Sure, slavery as an agricultural and economic base was outdated and on the way out, but slavery as a social structure was as strong as ever, as evidenced by the formation of white-supremecist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. True, the Confederate States may have eventually rejoined the United States after slavery had run its course, but the Federal government can not afford to set the precedent of letting whoever wants to leave cease to be part of the Union.

It is informative to see what Abraham Lincoln did as the Southern States seceded. He declared that the Federal Government would keep federal Armories, Forts and property. The Southerners then attacked those Federal Forts (Like Fort. Sumner.) The states were too intertwined with the Federal Government to allow secession. (unsigned entry)

Looking at this from the standpoint of geopolitics, I think Harry Turtledove has it right when he posits in his American Empire series that had the USA and CSA continued into the mid-twentieth century as independent countries, they would have taken opposite positions on all unavoidable international issues -- possibly including the fight against Nazism. This is too bad, because I would really like to be able to say that people in, for example, South Carolina are not required to be in the same country with people from California whose beliefs are totally opposite. It seems to be a case of pragmatism overruling principle. On the other hand, reunification does mean I got to move to Texas from Pennsylvania in 1983 and meet all the nice conservatives who have subsequently shaped me. Incidentally, why is there no article here on Christian Exodus? -- Amyz, 10:04, June 1, 2007 (EDT)

Many people think of this the wrong way. The United States did not recognize the Confederacy as a separate nation (and for that matter neither did many other nations, including Britain), thus the government treated the Southern Army as a rebel army, not a foreign one. So, legally the U.S. government had a right to put down this rebellion, as it had in the Whiskey Rebellion and Shay's Rebellion (although that is technically pre-Constitutional). Saying that putting a rebellion down is a governmental right is sticky as that implies that dictators can put down popular rebellions legally (which I am against). Also this goes against one of the major shapers of our Constitution (Locke, Hobbes, or Rosseau, can't remember which), who said that if the government does not serve the people as they desire, they have the right to rebel. This also brings up moral relativism, as slavery seemed alright to most Southerners and wrong to most Northerners, and who can say which side was right with any definitivness. In the end though, it all turned out alright, so it must have been fine. To put it generally, history is the greatest judge. --Snotbowst 14:25, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

Well its my personal belief that there was a bigger thing going on. IF the US of A had not stayed together as one Union we would have lost both World War I AND World War II had we not been one nation. So I think the Lord motivated the North to try and save the Union. I however would have fought on the side of the South even though most of my people fought for the North from Iowa, Indiana and Illinois. --Wally 12:38, 26 June 2007 (EDT)

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BREAKING: Civil Unions To Become Law In Colorado After Final House Vote

Openly gay Colorado Speaker Mark Ferrandino (D)

Just now, the Colorado House voted 39-26 to grant final approval to a bill that would offer civil unions to same-sex couples, advancing  it to Gov. John Hickenlooper’s (D) desk for his promised signature. Colorado has a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, so civil unions are an important extension of partner benefits until that amendment can be repealed or overturned.

Lawmakers have attempted to pass civil unions for several years now. In 2012, enough Republicans supported the bill for it to pass, but Republican leadership in the House blocked it by sending it to a (fourth) committee whose members voted to kill it. The expediency with which the bill advanced this year reflects the large victories Democrats enjoyed in the November election.

Here is how the House voted:

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Colorado Senate Grants Final Passage Of Civil Unions

With a final vote of 21-14, the Colorado Senate has approved its third and final passage of SB 11, the civil unions bill. There was no additional debate before today’s vote. The bill proceeds to the House, where its sponsor, openly gay Rep. Mark Ferrandino (D), is now the chamber’s Speaker.

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BREAKING: Colorado Senate Approves Civil Unions Legislation

Civil unions sponsor Sen. Pat Steadman (D) speaking before supporters in May 2012.

Just now, the Colorado Senate voted 21-14 to approve Senate Bill 11, which would create civil unions for same-sex couples. This was the second of two readings, with a final vote expected on Monday. During the debate, several Republicans attempted to add various amendments that would create special religious protections for adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples, but none of them passed. Denver area political reporter Eli Stokols pointed out that last year’s civil unions bill had such protections, but House Republicans went out of their way to block that bill from passing.

The bill is expected to advance quickly through the House this year. Not only did Democrats win control over the House, but they also elected openly gay Representative Mark Ferrandino (D), the bill’s sponsor, as Speaker of the House. A November poll found that 70 percent of Coloradans support legal recognition for same-sex couples.

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Climate Patriotism: Sierra Club Endorses Civil Disobedience For First Time In Its History

If you could do it nonstop, it would take you six days to walk from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond to President Barack Obama’s White House. For the Sierra Club, that journey has taken much longer. For 120 years, we have remained committed to using every “lawful means” to achieve our objectives. Now, for the first time in our history, we are prepared to go further.

Next month, the Sierra Club will officially participate in an act of peaceful civil resistance. We’ll be following in the hallowed footsteps of Thoreau, who first articulated the principles of civil disobedience 44 years before John Muir founded the Sierra Club.

Some of you might wonder what took us so long. Others might wonder whether John Muir is sitting up in his grave. In fact, John Muir had both a deep appreciation for Thoreau and a powerful sense of right and wrong. And it’s the issue of right versus wrong that has brought the Sierra Club to this unprecedented decision.

For civil disobedience to be justified, something must be so wrong that it compels the strongest defensible protest. Such a protest, if rendered thoughtfully and peacefully, is in fact a profound act of patriotism. For Thoreau, the wrongs were slavery and the invasion of Mexico. For Martin Luther King, Jr., it was the brutal, institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow South. For us, it is the possibility that the United States might surrender any hope of stabilizing our planet’s climate.

As President Obama eloquently said during his inaugural address, “You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time, not only with the votes we cast, but the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideas.”

As citizens, for us to give up on stopping runaway global temperatures would be all the more tragic if it happened at the very moment when we are seeing both tremendous growth in clean energy and firsthand evidence of what extreme weather can do. Last year, record heat and drought across the nation wiped out half of our corn crop and 60 percent of our pasturelands. Wildfires in Colorado, Texas, and elsewhere burned nearly nine million acres. And superstorm Sandy brought devastation beyond anyone’s imagining to the Eastern Seaboard.

We are watching a global crisis unfold before our eyes, and to stand aside and let it happen — even though we know how to stop it — would be unconscionable. As the president said on Monday, “to do so would betray our children and future generations.”  It couldn’t be simpler: Either we leave at least two-thirds of the known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, or we destroy our planet as we know it. That’s our choice, if you can call it that.

The Sierra Club has refused to stand by. We’ve worked hard and brought all of our traditional tactics of lobbying, electoral work, litigation, grassroots organizing, and public education to bear on this crisis. And we have had great success — stopping more than 170 coal plants from being built, securing the retirement of another 129 existing plants, and helping grow a clean energy economy. But time is running out, and there is so much more to do. The stakes are enormous. At this point, we can’t afford to lose a single major battle. That’s why the Sierra Club’s Board of Directors has for the first time endorsed an act of peaceful civil disobedience.

In doing so, we’re issuing a challenge to President Obama, who spoke stirringly in his inaugural address about how America must lead the world on the transition to clean energy. Welcome as those words were, we need the president to match them with strong action and use the first 100 days of his second term to begin building a bold and lasting legacy of clean energy and climate stability.

That means rejecting the dangerous tar sands pipeline that would transport some of the dirtiest oil on the planet, and other reckless fossil fuel projects from Northwest coal exports to Arctic drilling. It means following through on his pledge to double down again on clean energy, and cut carbon pollution from smokestacks across the country. And, perhaps most of all, it means standing up to the fossil fuel corporations that would drive us over the climate cliff without so much as a backward glance.

One of my favorite quotes is from Martin Luther King, Jr., although it has its roots in the writings of Theodore Parker (an acquaintance of Henry David Thoreau): “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” I believe that, given sufficient time, our government would certainly follow the moral arc that leads to decisive action on this crisis. We have a democracy, and the tide of public opinion has shifted decisively. What’s more, I doubt that even the most ardent climate denier actually wants to destroy our world.

We have a clear understanding of the crisis. We have solutions. What we don’t have is time. We cannot afford to wait, and neither can President Obama.

– Michael Brune is Executive Director of The Sierra Club. This was reprinted from Coming Clean, Sierra’s blog, with permission of the Sierra Club. © 2013 Sierra Club. All Rights Reserved.”

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Limbaugh Tarnishes Civil Rights Movement To Advance Pro-Gun Agenda

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh sought to equate the fight for African American civil rights with opposition to gun safety on Friday, suggesting that the movement could have better protected itself from segregationists had it been armed. Limbaugh specifically signaled out Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a nonviolent civil rights activist who was beaten during the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

“Try this,” Limbaugh said. “If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma? I don’t know. I’m just asking. If (Rep) John Lewis, who says he was beat upside the head, if John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beat upside the head on the bridge?” Listen:

Lewis has issued a response to Limbaugh, noting that “Our goal in the Civil Rights Movement was not to injure or destroy but to build a sense of community, to reconcile people to the true oneness of all humanity.” “African Americans in the 60s could have chosen to arm themselves, but we made a conscious decision not to. We were convinced that peace could not be achieved through violence. Violence begets violence, and we believed the only way to achieve peaceful ends was through peaceful means.”

Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr — a strict disciple of nonviolent resistance — was shot by an assassin in 1968. In the wake of his death — as well as the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X — Congress passed, the Gun Control Act of 1968, the nation’s first comprehensive federal firearms regulation. Unfortunately, gun advocates have seized on King’s legacy to prevent gun safety reforms and are hosting a Gun Appreciation Day for the weekend of President Obama’s second inauguration. Larry Ward, chairman of the event, claims that it “honors the legacy of Dr. King.”

(HT: MMFA)

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U.N. Says 60,000 Killed In Syrian Civil War

NEWS FLASH

U.N. Says 60,000 Killed In Syrian Civil War | The United Nations released a new analysis today finding that at least 60,000 Syrians have died in the country’s two-year long civil war, with, the AP reports, “monthly casualty figures steadily increasing.” “The failure of the international community, in particular the Security Council, to take concrete actions to stop the blood-letting, shames us all,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement. “Collectively, we have fiddled at the edges while Syria burns.”

By Ben Armbruster on Jan 2, 2013 at 10:30 am

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The FY 13 NDAA Keeps Terrorists Off U.S. Soil without Compromising Civil Liberties

Guest post from Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Jeff Landry, and Rep. Scott Rigell

This week, the House will fulfill our most important constitutional duty by debating the FY 13 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In accordance with the framer’s intent, this act is the primary check that Congress can apply to the Executive Branch on defense and national security policy.

Last year, constitutional conservatives raised the alarm bell about some provisions in the FY 12 NDAA; provisions that many were concerned would grant President Obama far reaching powers to detain American citizens without trial. The bill ultimately passed, but has become the subject of countless town hall meetings, tweets, and Facebook posts in the months since.

The debate has become so heated that many believe that the NDAA is a bill that deals strictly with detaining terrorists. It is much more than that. Aside from dictating how the military can handle any al Qaeda terrorists they capture, the FY13 NDAA deals with the full scope of national security issues. There is much in it, from a rejection of the Obama administration’s effort to raise health care fees on military retirees; to making sure the President doesn’t trade our missile defenses away to the Russians, that Conservatives can be proud of.

The real question before us is how to adjust the language from last year that has made so many so uncomfortable while still ensuring that we can fight and win the War on Terror. The base bill has already made important steps in the right direction. It includes the Rigell / Landry reassertion of the Writ of Habeas Corpus. This language firmly states that the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) and the FY 12 NDAA detainee provisions do not allow for the detention of any person in the United States without the right of redress. Under this provision, all Americans have access to the Writ of Habeas Corpus.

The underlying language is being further strengthened by the Gohmert / Landry / Rigell Amendment which further states that no citizens’s constitutional rights will be denied in an Article III court pursuant to the AUMF. The best way to protect our rights is to put simple and clear language in the NDAA that lays those rights out. Between the new language in the base bill and our amendment, we are confident we have done that.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-MA) and Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) have a competing amendment that simply goes too far. Their bill extends constitutional protections beyond U.S. citizens to any terrorist who is captured in the United States. We share the concerns of legal experts who worry that by granting terrorists greater rights if they are captured in America than if they are captured overseas, we are actually giving terrorists a profound incentive to attack us here at home. The Smith/Amash amendment grants foreign terrorists or foreign soldiers rights our own military do not have in court under the Constitutional Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Our approach is the better alternative. It protects our constitutional rights, but does not extend them to the very men who have been fighting for a decade to tear that great document down.

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