House Passes CISPA. Senate to come.

[Jesse]

Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that's not even the worst part.

The vote followed the debate on amendments, several of which were passed. Among them was an absolutely terrible change (pdf and embedded below—scroll to amendment #6) to the definition of what the government can do with shared information, put forth by Rep. Quayle. Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government's power, even though it in fact expands it by adding more items to the list of acceptable purposes for which shared information can be used. Even more astonishingly, it passed with a near-unanimous vote. The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.

Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for "cybersecurity" or "national security" purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more valid uses have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children. Cybersecurity crime is defined as any crime involving network disruption or hacking, plus any violation of the CFAA.

Read more via Tech Dirt and The Verge

[SuperDude526]

Oh...well that'll be fun. Probably a fool's hope, but I hope Obama will veto or at least pocket veto it. It is an election year, after all.

[travz21]

Go government!

[Hawk]

Fuck off CISPA. Not only did they make it worse, but they rushed the vote.

Redditors unite!

[Jesse]

Indeed they did make it worse, and added an amendment that claims to protect children just so they can say you are against child safety if you vote against this bill.

Also over 200 Republicans voted for this bill. The party that says they are for small government. What a laugh!

[@LP2K12]

Veto or lose my vote. That is all.

[Derek]

It doesn't matter if Obama vetoes this. You guys know as well as I know that the Senate will sell out to labels/technology companies and vote enough that Obama's veto can be overturned. It's what happened with NDAA. Obama vetoing would've meant nothing. It had a veto-proof majority.

[Jesse]

It would have been political suicide to veto the NDAA due to it being the military's budget. Or at least that's what I got from all I've read. But you're probably right.

[@LP2K12]

It doesn't matter if Obama vetoes this. You guys know as well as I know that the Senate will sell out to labels/technology companies and vote enough that Obama's veto can be overturned. It's what happened with NDAA. Obama vetoing would've meant nothing. It had a veto-proof majority.

Maybe, but it matters to me on principal alone. That's my President.

[travz21]

It doesn't matter if Obama vetoes this. You guys know as well as I know that the Senate will sell out to labels/technology companies and vote enough that Obama's veto can be overturned. It's what happened with NDAA. Obama vetoing would've meant nothing. It had a veto-proof majority.

There is no such thing as veto-proof majority. Once it's vetoed, it goes back to the House and Senate and they each vote to override the veto. Obama is bought and sold just like the majority of congress. The reason he doesn't veto things is because he wants them to be put into law. If he didn't, he would veto them. Here's a little basic info on it.

How Congress responds to a veto

When the President returns a bill to the chamber of Congress from which it came, along with his objections in the form of a veto message, that chamber is constitutionally required to "reconsider" the bill. The Constitution is silent, however, on the meaning of "reconsideration." According to the Congressional Research Service, procedure and tradition govern the treatment of vetoed bills. "On receipt of the vetoed bill, the President's veto message is read into the journal of the receiving house. After entering the message into the journal, the House of Representatives or the Senate complies with the constitutional requirement to 'reconsider' by laying the measure on the table (essentially stopping further action on it), referring the bill to committee, postponing consideration to a certain day, or immediately voting on reconsideration (vote on override)."

Overriding a veto

Action by both the House and the Senate is required to override a presidential veto. A two-thirds majority vote of the Members present is required to override a presidential veto. If one house fails to override a veto, the other house does not attempt to override, even if the votes are present to succeed. The House and Senate may attempt to override a veto anytime during the Congress in which the veto is issued. Should both houses of Congress successfully vote to override a presidential veto, the bill becomes law. According the the Congressional Research service, from 1789 through 2004, only 106 of 1,484 regular presidential vetoes were overridden by Congress.

[Money Maker Mike]

The sad thing about this is that when the majority of the REPUBLICANS in the house voted for this, it will be OBAMA that will get almost all the blame from close-minded people who do no research before they speak. On Youtube, so many people will say "obama's a monkey! ron paul 2012!". This will surely happen if the Senate passes it too. Now, no offence to Ron Paul supporters, but he's basically wanting to have a government comparable to Somalia's. He's an honest politician and all, but his views are far too extreme.

There is no such thing as veto-proof majority. Once it's vetoed, it goes back to the House and Senate and they each vote to override the veto. Obama is bought and sold just like the majority of congress. The reason he doesn't veto things is because he wants them to be put into law. If he didn't, he would veto them. Here's a little basic info on it.

And that's really ignorant.

[travz21]

Republicans and Democrats are the same. People need to stop taking sides and fighting each other over it. It simply comes down to the money. Most Republicans or Democrats will vote for whoever pays them the most (or any) money, regardless if it goes against what they traditionally stand for. This is called "lobbying". You can blame that for nearly everything that is corrupt in government.

And how exactly is that ignorant? Is it not a president's duty to veto things he thinks is not in the country's best interest? That's the whole reason the president has that power. If he doesn't use it, he absolutely thinks the bill is in our best interests. There is no other intellectually honest reason for not vetoing something if you believe you should be vetoing it. Every other reason is a corrupt reason. So either Obama really wants to veto it but isn't out of corrupt reasons, or he just doesn't want to veto it because he believes it should be law.


Also, people need to stop using the Somalia fallacy. Just because some country sucks doesn't mean that it's because of something you randomly assign the blame to. "Correlation proves causation" is the logical fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Just like I can't say, "I haven't been attacked by a tiger in my life because I carry around my tiger-repelling rock!" It's just pure illogical nonsense. Correlation does not prove causation. You can't just look at the surface of something and draw random conclusions.

If you guys want to have your minds rocked you can do some simple research on Somalia and see that the quality of life actually improved once their government disbanded.

[Todd]

Republicans and Democrats are the same.

Yes, except for their differences of opinion on economic policy, healthcare, a woman's right to choose, gay rights, gun control, the role of religion in public schools and government, education, immigration, foreign policy, military spending and social programs, they're exactly alike

If the quality of life is so great in Somalia, why don't you pack up your shit and move over there? I'm sure whichever guerrilla terrorist group is running that hellhole at the current moment would welcome you with open arms.

[travz21]

Do some research, bro. Their rhetoric is definitely different, but the majority of Democrats and Republicans vote exactly alike. It's because they're all paid by the same interest groups. It's why Obama is so alike Bush. It's why Romney would be so alike Obama.

I never said the quality of life in Somalia was great. Do most things fly over your head like that are you deliberately trolling by just throwing in more fallacies?

[SuperDude526]

No, I think we're all pointing out that libertarianism is completely absurd. And it's libertarians and Republicans that are two sides of the same coin, not Republicans and Democrats. Only difference is libertarians used to comprise white privilege, and Republicans still do.

Anyway, my hope is people will get informed and get behind this like they were with the SOPA/PIPA bills. And I don't know where Google stands on this one but it would be great to get their support once again. Perhaps we should start a petition to get them to sign on with the bill's opponents...

[travz21]

You think it's absurd because you can't understand it. It's a lot to comprehend when you're not used to thinking logically.

[Benjamin]

I'm actually going to agree with Travz about the veto issue. Sorry, but the fear that congress will override your veto is not a reason to not veto something.

Republicans and Democrats are the same. People need to stop taking sides and fighting each other over it. It simply comes down to the money. Most Republicans or Democrats will vote for whoever pays them the most (or any) money, regardless if it goes against what they traditionally stand for. This is called "lobbying". You can blame that for nearly everything that is corrupt in government.

And how exactly is that ignorant? Is it not a president's duty to veto things he thinks is not in the country's best interest? That's the whole reason the president has that power. If he doesn't use it, he absolutely thinks the bill is in our best interests. There is no other intellectually honest reason for not vetoing something if you believe you should be vetoing it. Every other reason is a corrupt reason. So either Obama really wants to veto it but isn't out of corrupt reasons, or he just doesn't want to veto it because he believes it should be law.


Also, people need to stop using the Somalia fallacy. Just because some country sucks doesn't mean that it's because of something you randomly assign the blame to. "Correlation proves causation" is the logical fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc. Just like I can't say, "I haven't been attacked by a tiger in my life because I carry around my tiger-repelling rock!" It's just pure illogical nonsense. Correlation does not prove causation. You can't just look at the surface of something and draw random conclusions.

If you guys want to have your minds rocked you can do some simple research on Somalia and see that the quality of life actually improved once their government disbanded.

Do some research, bro. Their rhetoric is definitely different, but the majority of Democrats and Republicans vote exactly alike. It's because they're all paid by the same interest groups. It's why Obama is so alike Bush. It's why Romney would be so alike Obama.

Democrats and Republicans are the same? You've got to be fucking kidding me.

[shinformant]

There have to be better examples than Somalia, right? There's practically no infrastructure left, it's overpopulated with people who are barely above the starvation line, there are no fucking roads there even. To say nothing of the warlords and pirates. I guess people must hear about the latter and have their minds jump to Johnny Depp and Dustin Hoffman.

[Todd]

There have to be better examples than Somalia, right? There's practically no infrastructure left, it's overpopulated with people who are barely above the starvation line, there are no fucking roads there even. To say nothing of the warlords and pirates. I guess people must hear about the latter and have their minds jump to Johnny Depp and Dustin Hoffman.

Examples of functioning anarchies? Nope, Somalia is the only anarchy, and it's not setting the best example. I think the fact that there aren't any functioning anarchies says a lot about how much we need government. If lacking a functioning government was so great, we'd see more countries without one.

So Somalia's quality of life has improved since their government disbanded. Big deal. The quality of life there is still terrible, it wasn't exactly a high bar to reach. Look at some of the European countries that are consistently at the top the quality of life index. Sweden, France, Norway, etc. These countries have big governments. Some of the high school dropout morons in the Tea Party might even say they're socialist. Health care is provided to all citizens regardless of social standing. Higher education costs hardly anything. There's a great infrastructure in place for things like transportation and telecommunications. Roads and bridges are maintained. And they have a strong social safety net for people who lose their jobs and fall on hard times, speaking of which, they have lower unemployment rates than the United States.

[Money Maker Mike]

Examples of functioning anarchies? Nope, Somalia is the only anarchy, and it's not setting the best example. I think the fact that there aren't any functioning anarchies says a lot about how much we need government. If lacking a functioning government was so great, we'd see more countries without one.

So Somalia's quality of life has improved since their government disbanded. Big deal. The quality of life there is still terrible, it wasn't exactly a high bar to reach. Look at some of the European countries that are consistently at the top the quality of life index. Sweden, France, Norway, etc. These countries have big governments. Some of the high school dropout morons in the Tea Party might even say they're socialist. Health care is provided to all citizens regardless of social standing. Higher education costs hardly anything. There's a great infrastructure in place for things like transportation and telecommunications. Roads and bridges are maintained. And they have a strong social safety net for people who lose their jobs and fall on hard times, speaking of which, they have lower unemployment rates than the United States.

Exactly. I agree with you 100%. There's a reason why the scandinavian countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway) are so stable.