Tag Archives: Michigan Republican

Articles of Interest

Justin Amash’s Revolution

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By Breaking News

Justin Amash SC Justin Amash’s Revolution

The Republican congressional leadership didn’t even want to bring Michigan Rep. Justin Amash’s anti-surveillance amendment up for a vote. The Obama administration certainly didn’t want it to pass.

Yet last week, Amash managed to force a debate on the House floor that should have happened more than a decade ago in the aftermath of 9/11. His amendment would have denied funding to the National Security Agency’s vast data-mining program.

Amash’s opponents hid behind classified information and misguided emotionalism. “Have 12 years gone by and our memories faded so badly that we forgot what happened on Sept. 11?” asked Rep. Mike Rogers, a fellow Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.

“We oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community’s counterterrorism tools,” White House press secretary Jay Carney echoed in a statement.

Wisconsin Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a past chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a co-author of the Patriot Act, was one of the 93 Republicans who voted with Amash. Sensenbrenner argued that Congress never intended for the government to sweep the phone records of all Americans.

Read More at the American Conservative . By W. James Antle III.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Computers

U.S. lawmakers vote against reining in NSA phone records collection

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The U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday narrowly rejected an effort to stop the National Security Agency from collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records.

Late in the day, the House rejected a bipartisan amendment, with more than 30 co-sponsors, that would have prohibited the NSA from bulk collection of phone records from U.S. carriers and cut off funding for the phone records collection program as currently designed.

The amendment, considered as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, would have allowed the NSA to continue collecting phone records of suspects, but only when relevant to an antiterrorism investigation. The NSA is part of the Defense Department.

House members who supported the amendment voted to “oppose the suspicionless collection of every American’s phone records,” said Representative Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican and chief sponsor of the amendment.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at PCWorld

Computers

CISPA sponsor compares opponents to 14-year-olds

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The chief sponsor of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in the U.S. Congress has ignited a Twitter storm by suggesting many opponents of the proposed cyberthreat sharing bill are 14-year-olds in basements.

The Twitter account for Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, has received thousands of tweets from opponents of the bill since late Tuesday after he said that “if you’re a 14-year-old tweeter in the basement” you don’t understand why Congress needs to pass CISPA. The full U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debate on the controversial bill Wednesday.

Privacy and digital rights groups have objected to the bill, saying it would allow ISPs, email service providers and other businesses to share a wide range of customer information they believe is related to cyberthreats with the U.S. National Security Agency and other government agencies. CISPA would protect businesses sharing cyberthreat information from being sued by customers.

Several websites, including tech policy blog Techdirt picked up on Rogers’ comments, made during debate Tuesday in the House Rules Committee over what amendments should be allowed on the House floor. The comments are included in a short YouTube clip posted by digital rights activist Sina Khanifar.

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From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2035405/cispa-sponsor-compares-opponents-to-14yearolds.html#tk.rss_all

Articles of Interest

RNC Passes Unanimous Resolution Affirming GOP Is Still Against Gay Marriage

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By The Huffington Post News Editors

RNC committee members gathered at their annual spring conference in Los Angeles voted unanimously on Friday to approve a number of resolutions, including one to reaffirm that the GOP still opposes gay marriage, Time’s Zeke J. Miller reported.

“[T]he Republican National Committee affirms its support for marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and as the optimum environment in which to raise healthy children for the future of America; and be it further resolved, the Republican National Committee implores the U. S. Supreme Court to uphold the sanctity of marriage in its rulings on California’s Proposition 8 and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act,” the resolution, first obtained by Chris Moody of Yahoo News, read.

Miller reports that the resolution was submitted by RNC committeeman Dave Agema, a Michigan Republican who has drawn criticism for calling gays and lesbians “filthy” and comparing them to people who were “dying of alcoholism.”

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From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/12/rnc-gay-marriage_n_3071333.html

Computers

Critics: CISPA still a government surveillance bill

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A U.S. House of Representatives committee failed to make the changes necessary to allay fears about government surveillance in a controversial cyberthreat sharing bill that’s moving toward a House vote, critics said.

The House Intelligence Committee, in voting 18-2 Wednesday to approve the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), did not address concerns that the bill would allow private companies to share too much customer information with government agencies in the name of fighting cyberattacks, digital rights groups said.

Committee leaders expect the full House to vote on CISPA as soon as next week.

“Cyberhackers from nation-states like China, Russia, and Iran are infiltrating American cyber networks, stealing billions of dollars a year in intellectual property, and undermining the technological innovation at the heart of America’s economy,” Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and cosponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “This bill takes a solid step toward helping American businesses protect their networks from these cyber looters.”

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From: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2033849/critics-cispa-still-a-government-surveillance-bill.html#tk.rss_all