If you forgot about CISPA, it’s the latest version of the internet spying bill that Congress has been trying to pass for years. So not only did Edward Snowden alert the American public and the world of the extraordinarily unconstitutional and immoral activities of the NSA and U.S. government, his information also stopped CISPA dead in its tracks…at least for now. It seems the plan is to reintroduce the bill in the fall, by which time the powers that be assume the S&P 500 will be up another 200 points and the public won’t even remember what the NSA is. From The Verge:
US lawmakers have been trying for the past two years to pass new bills that would set up information sharing programs between tech companies and the government. But those bills, including the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), look like they will be spending even more time in legislative limbo. Bloomberg news reports today that House and Senate lawmakers are holding back on introducing their own versions of CISPA or similar cyber information sharing legislation till at least this fall, due primarily to the public outcry following the revelations of the NSA’s secret internet spying program PRISM and its surveillance of millions of personal phone records.
The revelations of the NSA’s surveillance programs, which occurred in early June through leaked documents published in the Guardian, “probably couldn’t have come at a worse time,” for Senate cyber bill prospects, as Congressman Mike McCaul (R-TX) told Bloomberg. McCaul, a backer of CISPA who in 2012 also tried to introduce another separate bill that would increase funding for training government cybersecurity specialists, is just one of several lawmakers who is delaying introducing new bill proposals because they are worried there is no public appetite for expanding government cyber programs in the wake of the NSA leaks.
Just another reason to be eternally thankful for Mr. Edward Snowden. Stay safe sir.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
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Things In Politico That Make Me Want To Guzzle Antifreeze, Part The Infinity
But then, realizing in an instant the publication for which he works, Byers reassures us that all is really well.
Nevertheless, Greenwald is fighting the uphill battle. Despite how troubling the NSA’s surveillance practices are, the American people seem content to live with them. Moreover, the news cycle has moved on, dominated now by The Zimmerman trial, Egypt, et al. Finally, Greenwald doesn’t seem to have any more big revelations up his sleeve. Maybe that’s not the way it should be, but that’s the way it is.
So fk it, then. Let’s all get a beer at Sam And Harry’s. Rather than point out to the apparently history-impaired Byers that there were reporters pushing the same this-story-is-out-of-juice line as regards Iran-Contra in 1987, and, indeed, as regards Watergate in 1973 — and that, indeed, one could say that “the American people” seemed content to live with a president who sold weapons to terrorists and a president who organized a criminal gang in the Oval Office, I would point out to him that it is a piss-poor excuse for journalism to give up on its job just because there happen to be an unusual number of shiny objects elsewhere.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Snowden_Effect_On_Tiger_Beat