When Gridlock Works: Cybersecurity Bill Stuffed, For Now
By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake
Thursday August 2, 2012 11:06 am
The Senate, unable to come up with a schedule for amendments, blocked the cybersecurity bill today in an outcome that, despite being a result of Republican obstruction, satisfied Internet activists who had been urging a no vote.
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He (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) decried the fact that meetings continued on amendments without a deal, and that the Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the legislation because they feel it still puts too many demands on business groups to maintain standards for resisting cyber attacks on public infrastructure, was driving the process. Lawmakers took out the mandatory standard prescriptions on businesses, but the Chamber of Commerce still finds the bill too stringent. “Republicans are running like scared cats” on the legislation, Reid said. “The Chamber of Commerce has now become the protector of our nation’s security.”But if the Chamber is forcing Republicans to “run scared,” privacy groups and experts are running from the bill as well. Though they did get improvements from the truly awful CISPA bill that passed the House, most activist groups on the left paying attention to the bill still oppose it. The activist group Demand Progress generated 500,000 contacts to Congress opposing the bill, and the coalition Fight for the Future has been rallying against the bill as well.
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The best hope for stopping these breaches of privacy for coming into being is to kill a cybersecurity bill that many experts have doubted is necessary, especially without the mandatory standards. Sometimes gridlock is a friend.
As with Keystone XL, Social Security, and Medicare/aid this is likely a temporary victory. Versailles is convinced the proles have too much and want to take it away. The solution is to fire them.
All.
Remember in November.
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