(via chasingeuph0ria)
As House Passes CISPA, The Fight Is Just Beginning | Forbes
Despite growing resistance to the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, CISPA has cleared its first legislative hurdle. But the battle over the widely-criticized information-sharing bill is just heating up.
In an earlier-than-expected vote Thursday evening, the House of Representatives voted 248 to 168 in favor of the bill, which was originally designed to allow more sharing of cybersecurity threat information with government agencies.
The legislation has drawn the ire of legislators, civil liberties groups, security practitioners and professors, and hundreds of thousands of petitioners, who say the bill tramples over users’ privacy rights as it allows Web firms like Google and Facebook to give private users’ information to government agencies irrespective of other laws that protect users’ privacy. “It’s basically a privacy nightmare,” says Trevor Timm, a lawyer and activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “CISPA would allow companies to hand over private data to the government without a warrant, without anonymity, with no judicial review.”
But even before it passed, the House voted to amend the bill to actually allow even more types of private sector information to be shared with government agencies, not merely in matters of cybersecurity or national security, but in the investigation of vaguely defined cybersecurity “crimes,” “protection of individuals from the danger of death or serious bodily harm,” and cases that involve the protection of minors from exploitation.
That statute, which in effect widened the most controversial portion of the bill just hours before it came to a vote, is sure to draw even more heat as the bill works its way through the legislative branch and reaches President Obama’s desk. The president currently backs a bill in the Senate put forward by Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, designed to increase the cybersecurity regulatory powers of the Department of Homeland security, which has been opposed by the GOP and stalled in the legislature.
The White House came out Wednesday with a strongly-worded statement slamming CISPA and pushing its regulatory approach in a threat to veto CISPA, writing that “cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive” and calling CISPA an intelligence bill rather than a security bill that treats civilians as subjects of surveillance. (White House watchers have observed, however, that the president’s advisors similarly recommended that he veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which he instead signed into law.)
Regardless, reconciling the House bill in its new, even more controversial form with a Senate version, even as the White House opposes the central thrust of the legislation, will only rekindle the controversy that has grown around CISPA in the last week.
The EFF’s Timm says he sees the House’s early vote on CISPA as an attempt by its author, representative Mike Rogers, to squeeze the bill through before its opposition grew any stronger. “We’ve seen an explosion of a variety of groups and congressmen coming out against the bill,” he says. “As the Senate debates this, it’s good that privacy and civil liberties will be front and center.”
also check out:
What is CISPA?
Why CISPA Is Worse Than SOPA
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Stop Cyber Spying
After consulting with Doctors, Danielle and her husband decided that it would be more humane to terminate the pregnancy than allow the fetus to be born, only to die shortly thereafter. Attorneys, however, informed her that this wasn’t possible:
After consulting attorneys, doctors told Deaver and her husband that the Nebraska law prohibited an abortion in their case. She had to wait, give birth, and watch the infant die.
The result?
Nebraska’s new abortion law forced Danielle Deaver to live through ten excruciating days, waiting to give birth to a baby that she and her doctors knew would die minutes later, fighting for breath that would not come. And that’s what happened. The one-pound, ten-ounce girl, Elizabeth, was born December 8th. Deaver and husband Robb watched, held and comforted the baby as it gasped for air, hoping she was not suffering. She died 15 minutes later.
To give you some grounding info, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has stated that there is zero evidence that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks of gestation, and notes that there is no legitimate evidence demonstrating that a fetus can feel pain in the weeks thereafter.
But if we assume arguendo that a fetus can feel pain, then that means that the fetus experienced more pain during the 10 days it was being crushed to death by Danielle Deaver’s uterus (as a result of not having an amniotic sac to cushion its body), than it ever would have if the pregnancy had been terminated shortly after Danielle’s water broke. The law caused more harm than it alleviated underneath its own premise.
- Letters To My Country: More Scenes From The War On Women. Read more at the link. (via pantslessprogressive)
I just don’t understand why anyone thinks that a government has the right to control their body. If my body is not my own, than who’s is it?
(via pantslessprogressive)
Today marks the 159th birthday of Vincent van Gogh! In honour and tribute of one of the most recognizable artist of modern times. Here are some of his most iconic artworks. Happy birthday Vincent!!
matttt.. one of your favorite artworks. :)
CHP Brutalizes & Hog-ties Pregnant Woman (Fast Forward To 3:19)
Young woman was pulled over for improperly using her cell phone by California Highway Patrol officers. After first stopping on the right shoulder, she was ordered to not stop there, to go forward and get off freeway. Because of rush hour traffic noise, she did not hear clearly what she was directed to do.
Additionally, besides being typically scared after being lit up, and now confused about where she should go, she thought that she should go to the shoulder on the left side of the freeway and she changed lanes to her left to do this. When the CHP vehicle followed and then turned on its siren, she was told to pull off the freeway again, which she promptly did on the right shoulder after driving less than 1/4 mile. Once stopped, she was told to turn off the ignition, throw the keys out and exit. She did that and then two officers approached, one pointing his gun at her, yelling for her to turn around. She just stood absolutely paralyzed in terror with her hands open and to her side.
As the officer came up to her, she told him she was pregnant (which the officer admitted in his report), as she turned around in fear of him. The officer then kicked her feet out from under her and slammed her to the pavement face down. He then bent down on her, putting his left his knee on her neck, handcuffed her while also kicking her rib cage with his right foot. Even though she never resisted whatsoever, back up officers then HOGTIED her. She was then lifted up and placed on her left side in the back seat of the patrol car and driven to the station, which took about 20 minutes.
The police report stated falsely that after exiting the car, she was talking incoherently even though she said nothing except being pregnant, and that she was hogtied because she was flailing her legs, which she clearly did not. She is charged with evading and resisting arrest.Out of all fairness, it did appear she was driving erratically to evade the police officer. But I think their use of force was not justified. A single officer could have easily turned her around, leaned her up against the car (without hurting her), and arrested her peacefully. But instead, she got kicks, knees, hog-tied, and slammed on her stomach.
THIS IS CALLED ASSAULT. THEY ASSAULTED HER. THEY ASSAULTED TWO PEOPLE. THEY ARE FUCKING THUGS AND THEY DON’T DESERVE TO BE POLICE OFFICERS.
Did you see that fuckass kick her while she was already handcuffed IN THE FUCKING ABDOMEN? What a prick. Fuck cops.
(via antigovernmentextremist)
