Senate Cybersecurity Bill Stalled By Ridiculous Amendments 233
wiredmikey writes "Despite a recent push by legislators, it remains unclear whether the Senate will manage to vote on the proposed comprehensive cybersecurity legislation (Cybersecurity Act of 2012) before Congress adjourns at the end of the week for its summer recess. Once all the amendments (over 70) have been dealt with, the Senate could decide to vote on the bill immediately, or wait till after the summer recess. As usual, the Democrats and Republicans have been unable to agree on which amendments will be considered, effectively stalling the bill. And most interesting, is that in typical U.S. political fashion, some of the amendments have nothing to with the topic on hand (cybersecurity): ... Sen. Frank Lautenberg has filed a measure to ban high-capacity ammunition clips as part of a gun-reform proposal. And Sen. Mike Lee filed a bill that would ban abortion in Washington, D.C. after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Sen. Michael Bennet and Tom Coburn filed an amendment to expand the Office for Personnel Management's federal government's data center consolidation initiative. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested an amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act."
Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is the way our government works, tacking on all sorts of stupid shit but it still seems absurd.
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Funny)
Those who love sausage and respect the law shouldn't watch either being made.
CyberSecurity Bill by Lieberman? (Score:2)
Join me in celebrating the defeat of this additional intrusion of police-state power. Let's hope it's blocked FOREVER!
This is not about any "Security" I know of - unless you mean the kind of "Security" that the DMCA offers toward corporations.
The bill focuses on restriction of tools and activities used to manage, diagnose and secure network connectivity. Users of Wireshark or even ping can be treated like DMCA circumventors, under the provisions of this proposed act.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/f [eff.org]
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
That just means they aren't passing more useless laws to infringe on my privacy, curb my rights, or charge me more money.
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:4, Informative)
"As far as I know, no other country does this ludicrous crap"
You haven't studied many other countries legislatures much, then. Look up things like the cow walk in Japan and some of the shenanigans where fistfights break out various legislatures.
What about Belgium when it couldn't even form a government for a year and a half? They finally did late last year.
What about the long term period of the Italian government of the month that went on for decades?
What about India two years ago when they only managed to pass 4 whole bills in one session?
I'm not saying the US congres is good, it's just not the only one that does this.
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish they would change the rules to allow only amendments related to the legislation in question. It would seem such a simple thing would make congress much more efficient. Then again, I seriously doubt that was ever a priority for them.
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Funny)
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And the bill to get that passed would have 100 amendments having nothing to do with outlawing amendments!
LOL. I wish I had mod points to give you. That about made me spew coffee all over my screen. Well done sir! :)
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Or how about no amendments... pass or fail by the bill alone.
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Amendments in and of themselves aren't inherently evil. If they introduce legislation that has a gap, or isn't clearly defined, an amendment can be used to shore up weaknesses and to address various concerns.
That said, allow anyone to introduce ANY amendment, related or not, just seems asinine. Limiting the scope only to related amendments makes sense.
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Who's to determine if an amendment is related? I mean, if you are talking about a budget act, one could argue that any amendment could be included because anything takes money. If I submit a bill that states: "Patents relating to software are hereby disallowed" (but of course, in legalese). What's to prevent someone from saying: "Well, Microsoft is involved heavily in software patents... therefore I amend that companies reporting as software entities be permitted a tax break because of this bill." Now,
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Insightful)
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I disagree. If they knew the basic system was flawed, making it inefficient would only delay any perceived protection, inevitably ending up in the same place eventually while only taking longer to get there. Claiming they designed it as such specifically to protect our rights has no basis in proof. A good example is the filibuster. It was never intended to be used in the manner it is today. It's use today is used to endlessly stall legislation. The founding fathers didn't design that. It was added later. Th
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To sum it up. James Madison writes about the influence of Factions (aka Parties). He sees these as negative, but unavoidable. Thus, the he suggests a system in which smaller Factions have the ability to slow down and force larger Factions to discuss and debate issues.
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He disagreed with political parties, not with amendments or efficiency. He saw parties as diluting the message (the message getting lost in a larger parties platform). A good example would be the difference between a social conservative and a fiscal conservative. Especially right now, we see social issues burying fiscal issues in the Republican Party, who in turn has trouble focusing on helpful legislation due to intra party factions. They are now ruled by the more fringe elements of their party, and fiscal
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Agreed completely, however... ...I used to work in a field fairly close. We weren't passing laws, but essentially we were doing regulations. Here's the thing: If you have a rule that says only amendments that are related can be added, the trolls will simply move to discussing you to death on what exactly "related" means. While you cut down on the obvious bullshit, you add a lot of conflict to the non-obvious and for the actual useful - the same guys who file this nonsense amendments all the time will doubt
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A yes/no simple majority vote would be easy enough to decide if an amendment is related. Sometimes a simple solution is also the best one ;) If they want to play politics claiming gun clip laws are related to Cybersecurity, then they could answer to their opponents when they are up for re-election. They could also consider penalties for those that suggest an amendment that is voted 'No' (not related) to prevent such spamming.
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So, under your system, the Democrats in the Senate can define anything they want to be "related", and the Republicans in the House can do likewise.
So, how is that different than now?
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
This was one that the Confederate States got right:
Article I, Section 9(20): Every law or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.[17]
Too bad that one was never incorporated.
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It's like government by obsessive-compulsive sufferers. "I can't concentrate on this bill, I can only keep my obsessions front and center."
Government for the morons, by the morons and of the morons.
Re:Business as usual, but it still seems absurd (Score:4, Funny)
It's not absurd. If you cyberRTFA you'll see that they are talking about cyberabortions of cyberpregrancies, cybergunreform and cyber-repealing of cyberhealthcare.
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I solved this problem ages ago, but nobody listens to me. I guess it's a curse: I'm some kind of miraculous oracle, I solve the world's problems on the backs of napkins, and nobody fucking cares. It's what I do.
Look, maybe if I say it enough somebody will listen. When you make a bill, you add a mission statement. A statement of purpose. It's legally binding. This bill has the purpose of ... improving the robustness of the economy of the United States of America by means of regulating the trading of
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Obligatory Simpsons quote:
Speaker: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of—
Congressman: Wait a second, I want to tack on a rider to that bill – $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill? [entire Congress boos] Bill defeated. [gavel]
Kent Brockman: I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply doesn't work.
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You basically invoke common sense. The idea is not to make the law foolproof, but to make it possible to shoot down such amendments, even if it takes some effort to do so. Let the courts argue the specifics in any particular case, that's what they're there for.
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I didn't mean this literally, but rather in intent. For example, here's how Washington State constitution specifies this:
"LIMITATION ON AMENDMENTS. No amendment to any bill shall be allowed which shall change the scope and object of the bill."
The precise interpretation of "change the scope and object" is not defined here, and would be up to the court. But the purpose of this clause is so that you can invoke the court in the first place.
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We tried that already.
SCOTUS ruled it as an unconstitutional violation of the presentment clause.
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Some American states have explicit prohibition on these kinds of shenanigans. E.g. Washington State Constitution:
SECTION 38 LIMITATION ON AMENDMENTS. No amendment to any bill shall be allowed which shall change the scope and object of the bill.
Ridiculous all over (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:bill itself (Score:5, Informative)
Well, here's the summary links to the bill itself.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.2105 [loc.gov]:
I'm a little out of my depth but "comprehensive legislation" these days makes me nervous that there aren't sneaky things in there.
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p.s. the link won't work with a final : symbol on the end, Slashdot doesn't like the link.
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I'm a little out of my depth but "comprehensive legislation" these days makes me nervous that there aren't sneaky things in there.
Unfortunately it happens far too often.
Take the Hughes Amendment [youtube.com] for example, If you pay attention, you'll notice the amendment that Mr. Hughes brings to the table fails to pass, but is instead inserted into the bill as passed by the gavel of Mr. Rangel.
the bill already failed, what is this article abou (Score:5, Informative)
??? the bill failed a vote on the senate floor minutes ago
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-cybersecurity-act-fails-to-pass-in-the-senate-20120802,0,1649471.story
Re:the bill already failed (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like you're right. The bill was reintroduced as S.3414 [loc.gov] which was voted on [senate.gov] and rejected a few hours ago.
Holding pattern until the election (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point Congress is in a holding pattern until the election. You'd be lucky to get through a resolution expressing condolences to the Colorado shooting victims.
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Re:Holding pattern Since the election (Score:2)
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"Cybersecurity" 101 (Score:3)
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don't have critical infrastructure facing the internet.
There are other ways to get malware onto a target PC, especially if the target is specific enough
Use strong encryption for sensitive files.
Keys can be lost or stolen. I think we've learned the lesson by now and 'strong' encryption means unbreakable for the forseable future, but there was a point where strong encryption was only secure for a decade or two.
Deploy security patches promptly.
Doesn't help any of the multitude of zero day exploits in the wild.
Use the right tool for the job, sometimes that means using a commercial OS, sometimes it means developing a new OS, sometimes it means taking an existing OS (*Nix) and tweaking it.
Sometimes you just can't afford to in terms of time or budget. Sometimes the available developers have a limited skill, some
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All of those are excuses, and while one or two might be valid for a specific part, one of the things about security is that you should be doing ALL that stuff, to minimize your risk should one of the other facets fail.
Especially the budget one. I'm sorry, but good security costs money. And until there are very real penalties for not doing it, many cheapasses will simply choose not to.
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Unfortunately, there are too many people out there who either don't know any of this stuff, or simply don't care, or find it "too expensive".
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OK, let's start with our most critical information infrastructure. I guess that would be the banking system and the stock market. So, I guess we will just go back to mailing checks around and good old authentication techniques like writing your name on a piece of paper or calling your broker and sounding like yourself.
Feel better yet?
kent brockman: (Score:2, Troll)
i've said it before and i'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work.
Re:kent brockman: (Score:4, Insightful)
i've said it before and i'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work.
It's worse than everything except everything else.
The best government would be an enlightened despot, but there's no way to me sure your despot stays enlightened. Nor to ensure the succession.
Nor to get everyone to agree on what 'enlightened' means.
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— E.M. Forster, "Two Cheers for Democracy"
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That's not a bug, that's a feature.
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And it would keep good things from passing, and it would make anything that does pass into complete and utter crap.
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What would it take... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What would it take... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if they did follow the constitution they'd use political doublespeak to prevent it from working as intended.
Re:What would it take... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is figuring out how to craft a law demanding that. What does it mean to be "relevant" to a bill's stated purpose? For that matter, how does one define the "stated purpose" of a bill?
Common-sense legislation is a nice idea, but it turns out that common sense is actually quite difficult to describe in a manner suitable for law. That goes double in common-law systems, where precedent becomes a law unto itself and so interpretation becomes extremely important.
Re:What would it take... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is figuring out how to craft a law demanding that. What does it mean to be "relevant" to a bill's stated purpose? For that matter, how does one define the "stated purpose" of a bill?
But the same thing applies to many parts of the existing Constitution. What constitutes a "reasonable search"? What kind of punishments are "cruel and unusual"? And so forth. The answer, in practice, is that the federal courts decide these things. If there was a Constitutional amendment barring irrelevant additions to bills, the deterrent to Congress would presumably be that the addendum could be thrown out by the courts and therefore there would be no point in trying to pass it. Even if the benefit of the doubt was given to the legislature in corner cases, the most blatant abuses like the ones mentioned in this article might be avoided.
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The obvious answer is, whoever wrote and introduced the bill gets to decide which amendments are relevant.
If a bad bill is introduced and the submitter stonewalls any amendments to improve it then it'll just get voted down.
/greger
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Thousands of English Teachers do this with papers every day.
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No the problem would be getting it passed. The people who would be voting on it would be the same people who expressly make use of the current system! The only way you'd get something like that passed is by having a large enough public protest that the politicians are forced to listen whether they like it or not.
As for defining a stated purpose, sure things are unclear. But that's why congress/senate/etc have discussions and debates. We just add one more aspect to it -- not just "is this good/bad?" but
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You can't do anything. The alpha sociopaths are in complete control of everything. People like you raging on about the constitution or changing the system are just a giggle to them.
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What would we need to do to make this kind of shit illegal? A law? A constitutional amendment? I don't think it would be too hard to get 2/3 of Americans to agree that any amendment or rider to a bill should be relevant to that bill's stated purpose.
At this point we're left with few options, although these [wikipedia.org] devices [wikipedia.org] have classically proven effective at eliminating political corruption.
now, if only we can find a way to convinced the doped-up masses to actually use them...
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Those devices also have classically proven effective at removing the other guy's corruption, while increasing the power of your own corruption.
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Those devices also have classically proven effective at removing the other guy's corruption, while increasing the power of your own corruption.
Your point, assuming you have one?
"Let's leave things fucked up, because the people who want to fix it might, eventually, fuck it up too" is not a legitimate rationale for allowing known corruption to exist.
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I don't think it would be too hard to get 2/3 of Americans to agree that any amendment or rider to a bill should be relevant to that bill's stated purpose.
Too bad the general population doesn't make laws then (though there are plenty more cases where it is a damned good thing they don't). In this case the people you are trying to restrict are the ones that are creating such laws. Just how likely do you think it is that they will curb their potential of abuse of the system to suit their own ends?
You know the answer (Score:2)
What would we need to do to make this kind of shit illegal? A law?
Great idea! We can append it to the Senate cybersecurity bill.
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Really, it would just take an adjustment to the rules of the relevant chamber of Congress. A law would make it a little more concrete, as the House and Senate determine their rules at the seating of the new Congress (or something along that timeline).
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Yes, it would take a constitutional amendment, likely. However you need 3/4 of the states (as in, their legislatures) to get one through, not 2/3 of the people.
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Precisely the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the fundamental reasons why we have the issues we have. Including amendments or clauses that have absolutely nothing to do with the main content of the bill itself should not be allowed. It has historically and currently used to sneak in laws that are not openly discussed with the public in order to pass those laws without public knowledge. This is because they know it is harder to eliminate a law after it has passed than it is to block a law before it passes.
While arguments could be made that legitimate laws that should be passed would take too long to get passed, this ability is abuses far more frequently than being used for legitimate laws. And for that reason, things like this need to stop.
Ulterior Motives with add-ons? (Score:2)
Cybersecurity and magazine clips? (Score:2)
Shouldn't they be concerning themselves with restricting WoW magic swords and stuff like that?
I mean, come on folks. Put the stuff about real weapons in a physical security bill.
Oh I see (Score:2)
Has there ever been a high capacity clip? (Score:2)
Has anyone ever actually made a high capacity clip?
I am well aware of high capacity magazine, but I have never seen stripper clips more than 5 rounds, and moon clips are for revolvers.
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I am well aware of high capacity magazine, but I have never seen stripper clips more than 5 rounds, and moon clips are for revolvers.
Don't worry. Most other men can't go five rounds with a stripper either. Nobody's that high-capacity.
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I am not aware of any but it would be nice if they made them so we wouldn't have to see these kinds of posts any more.
Re:Has there ever been a high capacity clip? (Score:4, Informative)
In fairness to the Senator, the amendment bans "transfer or possession of large capacity ammunition feeding devices". It's the reporter who doesn't know a clip from a magazine.
It's actually a pitifully toothless law, as it excludes any extended magazines already in existence in the country. It would take decades to have any effect. Not that it has any chance of passing in the first place.
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I doubt anyone would call 10 rounds high capacity.
I was not aware of those, don't most of the firearms that shoot that use removable magazines?
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SKS is loaded from 10-round stripper clips, and has a non-detachable 10-round magazine.
IIRC, there were also 10-round clips for Lee-Enfield, though those weren't used much in practice.
And in Canada, anything above 5 rounds for centerfire rifles is "high capacity". Unless [shopquestar.com] you put "designed for pistols" on the mag and there is a pistol sold in the country that can take such mags, that is...
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So you can't even get normal STANAG magazines in Canada?
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Garand does that, but still not hicap.
Government procedural fail (Score:2)
The rules allow them to introduce any kind of irrelevant crap into any bill. There's no filtering process because there's no binary way to assess relevance and politicians apparently can't deal with ambiguity well enough to set up even simple heuristics, approved by vote.
There's little evidence of intelligence in congress, even on the intelligence committee. After all, Michelle Bachmann is on it.
One Subject at a Time Act (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a great reminder to contact your Representative and ask them to support the latest iteration of the H.R. 3806 One Subject at a Time Act [govtrack.us] in the House and Sen. Paul's version S. 3359 One Subject at a Time Act [govtrack.us] in the Senate. Both bills are endorsed by DownsizeDC, which is one of the originators of the idea [downsizedc.org], according to their site.
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I love the idea of keeping amendments relevant to the bill at hand. But the question is, who decides the relevance? Do you think Michelle Bachmann would vote that the amendment to repeal the ACA would be irrelevant to this bill? Hardly.
The Courts (Score:2)
The same people that interpret all the rest of the vague, subjective, conflicting law that comes out of congress - the courts. Sen Paul's bill states that any provisions in a bill which are not related to the subject of the bill will be void. Thus if the government attempts to enforce any sections of law introduced by such bills, it will be appealed and potentially struck down by the courts.
Any self-restraint by the congress is highly desirable, but they are not the final authority.
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Sen. Paul's version S. 3359 One Subject at a Time Act
Would this be the same Senator Paul who insists on tacking abortion riders onto flood insurance bills [thehill.com]?
I note that even the official summary of the bill has the phrase "and for other purposes" tacked onto it.
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"Would this be the same Senator Paul who insists on tacking abortion riders onto flood insurance bills?"
While I don't support his position on abortion, you can hardly blame him for playing by the existing rules, while he is in the process of trying to change them for the better.
Otherwise, he might as well just quit and go home, and you will never see those rules get better.
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He was given a set of rules (the Senate rules, that is), and he is trying to change them for the better. In the meantime, he plays by the existing rules, which he did not make. There is nothing contradictory about that.
Then why isn't he trying to introduce this particular piece of legislation itself as a rider? If he is truly committed to "working within the system to change the system," why is he insisting his "change the system" legislation stand alone and go down a path guaranteed to go nowhere? Wouldn't be more effective to tack this onto a flood insurance bill?
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The existing rules make it easier to filibuster any bill that proposes to change the Senate rules.
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I love how both summaries include "and other purposes." I'm sure its standard language, but its amusing nonetheless on bills intended to prevent tacking "other things" on bills.
Code Re-Use (Score:2)
Our Whores for the highest bidder system.. (Score:2)
Our Whores for the highest bidder system of government is predictable in that no matter what they do it will be detrimental to the American people.
dammit congress (Score:3)
this is why we can't have nice things
Who decides? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who decides? (Score:5, Interesting)
And who decides if the amendment is related to the bill or not? The majority party? Luckily our congress would never act in a petty & partisan manner by randomly punishing their political opponents just because they can.
Believe it or not, Congress is not made up only of Congressmen. There are various nonpartisan offices whose job is to analyze everything brought to them - for example, the Congressional Budget Office. This could just create the Congressional Relevance Office.
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And who decides who's on that office?
I really like the idea, I'm just worried about what the implementation would be.
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And who decides who's on that office?
I really like the idea, I'm just worried about what the implementation would be.
A normal hiring process. Using the CBO as an example again, here's [cbo.gov] their "career opportunities" page.
Re:Who decides? (Score:5, Informative)
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And who decides if the amendment is related to the bill or not?
Logic, maybe?
Oh, we're talking about Congress; no logic allowed.
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And who decides if the amendment is related to the bill or not?
The courts, if it comes to that.
The idea, though, is that once it can come to that, there will be fewer of such BS to begin with.
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An amendment making the proposal of amendments to a bill - which are not directly related to said bill's specific subject - matter a crime punishable by being forced to watch at least 72 continuous hours of Barney the Friendly Dinosaur.
For a second offense, maybe. First offense? 48 hours of The Brady Bunch. Course, they'd probably throw it out as cruel and unusual punishment, but hey, if it's not cruel and unusual, how can it be punishment?
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Noone will propose that amendment, as it won't be directly related to that bill subject, so will be condemned to see the Barney marathon. Anyway, should exist a bill against such kind of inhumane punishments, but didnt got approved because the cybersecurity addendum to it.
And that would be pretty close to a paradoxical bill, not that having logic or any pretention of making sense matter for most already approved ones anyway.
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You act like Congress can only act on one issue at a time. That's simply not true.