Proposed Law Would Give DHS Power Over Privately Owned IT Infrastructure 300
CelticWhisper writes "H.R. 3674, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act (PRECISE Act), would allow the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to require improved security practices from those businesses managing systems whose disruption could prove detrimental to critical life-sustaining or national-security initiatives." As the article points out, this is just "one of 30 or so such bills currently percolating on the Hill."
Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Republicans all scream for "smaller government" yet they happily sign any bill that gives away rights to the Gubment for "fighting TERRORISIM"
Bunch of hypocrites they all are.
It seems that nothing but evil comes out of washington DC anymore.
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, are Democrats like the Obama-led White house or the Obama-appointee-led DHS against this bill?
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:4, Insightful)
They claim to respect privacy and free speech, do they not?
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where were you during the Clipper chip fiasco? CALEA? The Phil Zimmermann trial?
That was Clinton.
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It's probably fairer to say that post-Reagan Republicans haven't been for smaller government. These days, they just disagree with Democrats on what the expansion should cover.
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Informative)
What do you mean post-Reagan?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Budget_Deficit_1971_to_2001.png [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:4, Funny)
Republicans CLAIM that they are for smaller government actually, they just want THEIR rules in place, rather the ones the Democrats want.
And they are just as bad as the democrats. If both parties don't start working together eventually the american people will kick all the lazy bastards in congress out.
You can't really vote them out any more. (Score:5, Insightful)
Voting machines have effectively eliminated any pretense of public control over government. Your choices are limited to the corporate-approved labels on the buttons.
And no matter what buttons you push, the tallies from the voting machines will say what the controllers of the voting machines want them to say. You have no way to check the validity of those tallies so they are incredibly unlikely to be valid - there's too much power at stake for such an obvious control point to be left uncorrupted.
Lately some states don't even bother to count write-in ballots any more, and most of them are looking into removing the write-in option from their machines.
We're leaving the Republic stage and entering the Imperial era. If we keep following the classical pattern, the next step is civil war, although hopefully long after you and I are both dead.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore," [Rove] continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actorsâ¦and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Re:You can't really vote them out any more. (Score:4, Informative)
*Electronic* Voting Machines are the avenue by which the process will be wholly taken over. Without the backing of paper records, electronic records are forever changeable and now you're left with custody chains of things that are microscopic in size and able to be tampered with remotely. Or just plain erasable....
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This is why a secret ballot works. I get to vote so that only I know my vote, but by being in a controlled environment my ballot is placed in a receptacle that doesn't preserve order. There's no way to know how any individual voted but the validity of those ballots remains unquestionable.
Verifiable chain of custody of p
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They don't always have to outright rig elections.
You can create congressional districts that are reliably for one party while creating others that put 2 of the other parties congresscritters into the same district, which reduces their number in Congress by 1.
You can make sure "your" precincts have plenty of voting booths or machines, and shortchange the other party's precincts so that people have to wait in line for hours to vote.
You can pass voter ID laws that hamper some of those most likely to vote for t
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Telling idiots what they want to hear... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is how you win elections.
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American Television is a good start on making the populace stupid.
In europe many of the channels have educational and though provoking Programming. In the USA we have "Ow my Balls"
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These(and more) are known internationally
Most (if not all) of them are American I think.
Arent the rest of the shows there of a similar or only slightly lower quality?
Re:Telling idiots what they want to hear... (Score:5, Insightful)
At least on Big Bang Theory you can hear a quick synopsis of Schredinger's Cat thought experiment, watch them bounce a laser off the moon, use the power of the internet to turn their lights on and off or have a robotic hand give them a pack of soy sauce (among other things).
What does one get from Biggest Loser? Don't eat so much and get off your fat ass?
Re:Telling idiots what they want to hear... (Score:4, Insightful)
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How an oppressive government handles their people can vary. In this day and age, they can't just come out and claim all power and deny the people theirs by force. They have to legislate it. On of the most effective ways of getting the things you want legislated is to keep the people in opposition or would be in opposition, out of the equation. Thus you get laws that would deny us access to information for the purposes of the government to "do their jobs" protecting us. This we happily allow in the name of s
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Re:Telling idiots what they want to hear... (Score:4, Informative)
Please. I'm a teacher, my wife is a teacher, and my relatives who are far, far older than I am (read "grand" style older) were also teachers. That is such a specious argument it's laughable.
Since we're all teachers in our family, we often speak about how things were and are for ourselves. If I've learned nothing else, it's that being a teacher has become far more onerous a task, with far more oversight put upon the teacher, that I cannot fathom a conversation between ourselves that goes something like, "We're not as held accountable as you guys once were." My grandparents tell me all the time how they used to be able to teach the curriculum in the order they wanted, spend the time they wanted on the sections they could see students struggling with, and so forth. They didn't have proscribed "curriculum maps" which dictated not just the topics, but in some cases the exact page numbers in a textbook they must teach, nor did they have "curriculum timelines" that dictated not just the order of the topics ("you must teach Chapter 5 before Chapter 2 - don't argue, just do it!"), but also the exact number of days you must teach each unit.
In other words, when the students I teach have spent their requisite time on differentiation, if they still have trouble with the derivatives of trigonometric functions, tough luck, sucker - we have to learn integration of trig. Wish I could help you, Johnny, really do, but we'll just have to do that outside of class after school - and I hope you don't get further behind either!
Now, to blame those kind of issues on teachers - as you are doing - is deceiving and disconcerting simultaneously. My student test scores (on my own teacher-made tests, which I worked my way through my master's in education to learn how to improve and reinforce) have steadily declined, even though I've actually become better and more informed as an educator in my subject area. The most glaring reason I can see (beyond sampling error in my students, which is always an issue) is that I have lost the creative freedom I once had 6-7 years ago as an educator to organize and present my curriculum in the most meaningful, most easily connected way possible. In the past, I saw my administrators when they felt there was a need to tour my room, or when I invited them to come, and the district kept its hands off of my teaching. Now, instead, I have administrators doing daily walkthroughs, which is counterproductive to the learning of my students because they [and myself] spend more time worrying about whether or not the student in the back with the cut-off shorts may get pulled out by the administrator for a dress code violation, and myself disciplined because I allowed the student to sit there in cut-offs and [gasp!] learn. I have district personnel who are mandating a progression of curriculum who have no degree in the subject area at all - and therefore no business in dictating how it's taught - but have the authority granted to them by the school board to make such decisions. (Case in point: Try teaching how to apply the Law of Sines or Law of Cosines to solving an oblique triangle before you're "allowed" to teach students what sine or cosine even is. Sure, it can be done, but why?)
The reality is nothing is ever as simple as you portray it. What I've described already shows you how teachers such as myself are being micromanaged to the point of being made automatons. Accountability is high for us as well, especially in our state where test scores are essentially all that matters. Our annual evaluations, and potentially job retention, by law must be > 50% determined by the state assessment. The problem is, the test is a single-day, 3-hour long test. Students can, and do, have bad days. I've personally seen students who were outstanding, 4.0 GPA candidates, and had an especially strong case of the flu, and took the test and failed it that day. There's no recourse for them but to take it again the next year - but the teachers of that student are marked down, along with the school, becau
Re:Telling idiots what they want to hear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Next, ask yourself, "Who provides the education in this country?" "Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it." I'd wager that if you walked out on the streets today and interviewed a hundred people, you could count on one hand the number of people who could give a rough description of each of the first ten Constitutional amendments. Maybe ten of those hundred people could tell you about the first five. I doubt half of them would know that the Bill of Rights and those ten amendments are the same thing. I suspect you would be hard-pressed to find probably a single person who could tell you what the Magna Carta was, why it was important and in what country it was written. All of these are incredibly important, but almost none of it is taught in school any more. I'll be honest; the only reason I know enough to mention these things is because of my eighth grade history teacher. We touched on these subjects in my high school and college courses, but Mr. Fox was the only teacher who actually thought they were important enough to emphasize them in his class. Most of my high school classmates were so freaking naive that I had arguments with them that ended with them saying something like, "But we're the good guys. Our government would never do that to us" at which point I usually just walked away.
So, yeah. Dumbing down. It's real, and it's happening. We may know more about technology, and we may know a lot more about Brittney Spears and Lady Gaga than previous generations knew about their celebrities, but this country is dangerously ignorant of its history. And it's starting to bite us in the butt.
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Todays mid day news shoutout was to Mrs. Johnsons 6th grade class. The pic showed them lined up outside with wands and bubble soap. They were learning about wind direction.
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Monopolize public education and then fail to teach anything.
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is
this what people want to hear? I know many Americans don't really care that much about civil liberties in the abstract, but they do care about things that might affect their own lives. The TSA was popular for a year or two after 9/11, but most Americans hate it now. The average man (or woman) on the street cares a lot more about the bad economy than about vague threats of terrorism.
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Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Informative)
Red Team/Blue Team? There's only one team, and it's the Big Government/Big Corporations Purple Team.
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Buzzz...try again (Score:3, Informative)
It's the Democrats that are trying to raise SOPA from the dead. [dailycaller.com]
But don't let that spoil your primitive tribal reaction.
Re:Please tell me why.... (Score:5, Informative)
Bunch of hypocrites they all are.
So are the Democrats. If you are going to make these comments, be an equal-opportunity commenter.
It seems that nothing but evil comes out of washington DC anymore.
Agreed. This is why I am supporting Ron Paul for President. He's the only candidate willing to do what it takes to clean out Washington DC.
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Don't really have anything against them requiring "improved security practices". As long as those practices aren't needlessly and pointlessly expensive and complicated. And as long as those "improved security practices" don't include providing a backdoor to the DHS.
So, what we can expect to be actually implemented in this bill is probably a bad idea.
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Don't blame politicians. It's all human fault. There is a 37 year old song on this subject saying "cold comfort for change".
The history of humanity is trading independence for comfort. If you look at all the revolutions, vast majority of them is about this trade went wrong.
Gratuitous use of the word 'evil' (Score:3)
Annoying it is, but evil it isn't. At least, not always.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that individual freedom works best when the consequences of being stupid also (mostly) fall unto the individual responsible. As long as that's the case, I'm in favour of giving people lots and lots of freedom. It's amu
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Re:uhh.. this is sponsored by a democrat (Score:5, Informative)
Representative Daniel Lungren R-CA
Rep. Gus Bilirakis [R, FL-9]
Rep. Peter King [R, NY-3]
Rep. James Langevin [D, RI-2]
Rep. Billy Long [R, MO-7]
Rep. Thomas Marino [R, PA-10]
Rep. Michael McCaul [R, TX-10]
Rep. Candice Miller [R, MI-10]
Rep. Steve Stivers [R, OH-15]
Rep. Robert Turner [R, NY-9]
Rep. Timothy Walberg [R, MI-7]
Yup, that must be a democrat bill.
How did you get modded up?
Re:uhh.. this is sponsored by a democrat (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure which side I fall on in this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure which side I fall on in this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes a no-brainer as in, you would have to not have any brains to think its needed.
That tends to be the problem with security... people are willing to let it cost whatever it does, and expanding it always makes some amount of sense... its nearly always possible to dream up more, to find gaps etc.
The thing is...where is the problem you are trying to solve? Do you claim that public transit is currently not safe? Really? Based on what? Where is the actual problem?
I am on the staff list for a Sci Fi Con where pe
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Even as a Democrat, I am getting very tired of our ever expanding Government. However, requiring critical systems like power and transportation etc... to have upgraded security is kind of a no-brainer.
Actually, when they say "those businesses managing systems whose disruption could prove detrimental to critical life-sustaining or national-security initiatives." I think they are referring to iTunes, Amazon, Facebook, etc. /sarcasm
Re:Not sure which side I fall on in this (Score:4, Funny)
Twitter has repeatedly been used in life saving situations. Therefore, we the .gov, must ensure it's ability to function.
Hi, please insert these tentacles into the Twitter system and relay every message through Langley. OKay THANX...
I CAN HAV MORE TAXBURGER NOW?
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which doesn't mean ensuring other people aren't getting in isn't a good idea. Demanding AT&T prevent eveasdropping on other peoples phone calls, and then demanding they have a secret room where the NSA can monitor all traffic are two separate parts. One is good. One is bad. Naturally, when dealing with politicians you will always get some good, and some bad together.
Regardless of your stance on big/small government (Score:2, Insightful)
does the DHS even have the necessary expertise in IT security ?
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does the DHS even have the necessary expertise in IT security ?
NCSD of DHS is responsible for all non-DoD government networks and their security. And yes, they do.
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They're pretty good at taking down websites en masse. Surely that takes some kind of skill?
http://www.geekosystem.com/government-shuts-down-84000-websites/ [geekosystem.com]
Re:Regardless of your stance on big/small governme (Score:5, Funny)
does the DHS even have the necessary expertise in IT security ?
Of course not. What a silly question.
Understanding something is not a requirement for supervising it. Ask your boss.
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I take it we're using the customer service skills of the TSA as an example of DHS's practical application of their lack of knowledge? ;-)
More like we will be using the IT skills of the TSA screeners.
"Does the Internet really come out of that cable? Wow. That's cool."
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Exactly. I would be much more comfortable if the NSA were in charge of something like this. They have a much better track record, and proven experience in providing security advice to the private sector.
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Re:What laws are proposed that reduces power? (Score:4)
What laws are being proposed to save us all from this?
Obviously none. That would tend to defeat the whole purpose.
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http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/?p=5706 [constitutioncampaign.org]
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Who is going to decide what "improved" means? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who is going to decide what "improved" means? (Score:5, Funny)
You need to upgrade all of your Linux servers to Windows. Our friends in Redmond assure us this is an improvement of utmost importance.
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That's pretty much how lots of other businesses work. Your product will have to meet some sort of standards board approved set of metrics, and then you advertise that when you sell it.
You shouldn't be able to buy electrical equipment that doesn't meet standards (I'm not 100% sure what those are in the US), and you shouldn't be able to install equipment that didn't meet those standards in a building. At least for legal compliance. The same applies to telecoms equipment, medical equipment etc. Regulatory
OK, so... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.voltage.com/technology/patents/index.htm [voltage.com]
Here too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_patents [wikipedia.org]
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Does the KGB (Oops! I meant "DHS")... (Score:2)
have it's own lobbying organization now?
Re:Does the KGB (Oops! I meant "DHS")... (Score:5, Funny)
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Overdue (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really overdue and your a fool if you think it isn't inevitable. We accept regulation for critical infrastructure like electricity and gas distribution. Why should IT be any different than any other piece of infrastructure?
I've worked with ITIL, SOX, HIPAA, SEC and a number of other regulations or standards for years. They are also largely similar in what they require, once you learn one the others are a quick learning curve. Mostly they are nothing more than attempt to codify best practices that you should be following anyways.
It's like the rail companies that cried foul when regulations required that they install safe coupling mechanisms in the 1800's. The railroads cried foul at the new expenses until they discovered that the regulations ended up saving more in labor than they can cost in parts.
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How dare you attempt to say something sensible hear? This is Slashdot - reasonable opinions are usually strongly discouraged, particularly when politics are involved!
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The problem is -always- in vague wording as to what could be "detrimental to ... national security"
Should power plants have regulated security, both physical and technical? Sure. Should 3rd party power plants that run factories be subject to the same? Is the loss of a small ISP detrimental to national security?
-Most- laws dont have bad intentions, but over time bad people abuse them, both corporation, lawyers and governmental agencies.
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Re:Overdue (Score:4, Insightful)
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What's next, they come to my home and tell me my computer is not secure? It's totally BS!
Yes, that is the logical next step. After all, there's no legal distinction between businesses and private citizens anymore (Thanks, SCOTUS fucks).
This sort of legislation passing is akin to hosing the slippery slope with a nice thick layer of Teflon.
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...and SOX and the SEC helped us avoid the banking disaster.
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Why would they use ISO or IEEE? (Score:2)
The thing you seem to be missing is that while there is an ISO 27001 standard covering IT, what reason do you have for the power company, water company, transportation or any other important industry to use it? Businesses won't self-regulate unless it costs them money.
As GP stated most of the regulatory frameworks are similar, all of them are step-children of the Common Criteria and all of them have requirements that can be mapped to each other.
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Virtual Absolute Government Usage of Equipment
What qualifications ... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I just wonder why "fix" something that isnt broken.... waste of resources and liberty for what gains?
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and so it begins (Score:2, Interesting)
Yet another stupid bacronym (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it with politicians insisting on giving their bills the most inane titles possible, just to spell out some mildly related acronym? We're electing and paying these people to write LEGISLATION, not commercial branding!
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That's the only way to get people to support it. They're not going to actually read the bill to see what's in it.
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Because citizens tend to react differently when the nightly news says congress is trying to pass a bill called "Stop Online Piracy Act" instead of "Rights Aborted by Pushy Executives..."
Same DHS? (Score:2)
Why the concern? (Score:2)
"Proposed Law Would Give DHS Power Over Privately Owned IT Infrastructure".
Requiring improved security is not much different than making sure that a company that makes toasters aren't making toasters that burn your house down.
Or cars having seatbelts. Do we say that the government has "power" over privately owned Car companies because they must abide safety or security concerns?
I have not read the full details of any planned law yet, but as state
Both Parties are at fault. (Score:5, Informative)
This includes buying votes from the masses by telling them they will get everything free at the expense of someone else - even though our national debt is now so large you could confiscate all the wealth of all the millionaires and still not pay it off - and also letting themselves be bought buy the highest bidder - er - best paying lobbyist.
Of course, to keep it under wraps, you have to both dumb down the general populace, and control all means of dissent. Shut down internet sites that oppose your viewpoint, call anyone who disagrees with you a terrorist and lock them away without any rights, and threaten the livelihood of anyone else who may be bold enough to get around your restrictions.
The only way to stop such non-sense it to VOTE THEM ALL OUT!
Al least it will take a new batch a few years to get so corrupt!
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Republicrats and Demicans are just a big trust against the people.
Washington D.C's Primary Export (Score:5, Interesting)
is corruption and problems. They ought to be excised and punished as a rogue state. Note, I'm not a right- or left-wing partisan, just an American who grew up when this country was known as the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."
The TSA ought to be expunged as the totalitarian body they are. The Department of Homeland Security ought to be dissolved and its members stripped of their citizenship and exiled to North Korea on the basis of the name of their agency alone.
The FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and their attendant bodies need to be spanked firmly for violating the constitutional rights of all Americans over the last 20 years. That means, their Directors and employees who issued and obeyed illegal orders ought to go to prison for the rest of their lives.
If that happened, I'd reckon the integrity of the Republic to have been preserved. But I'm not naive, and I know that that will never happen.
As such, the only answer is for American citizens to bring the government and its backers to justice by force. As a man of peace and a father, I don't relish that at all. But neither do I want my kids to grow up as slaves.
It's sobering indeed to contemplate another 20 years loving and nurturing my family in an increasingly totalitarian country vs. a personal life-ending confrontation with tyranny in the name and cause of freedom. But in my heart I can't see any other way. I was raised a patriot. In my mind and heart I meant the oath we all took to uphold and defend the freedom America stood for. But now the unthinkable has happened and the political entity known as the United States has so far departed from the premise of the oath we took that we cannot possibly reconcile the two; we can either support the path of freedom, or we can uphold the United States.
I know that enough of my compatriots, supposed "left" and "right," share that conviction to make a difference. I know that the subversion of our freedom is not yet widespread enough and deep enough to reverse that bedrock faith. I know that despite the prevalent apathy, supported and abetted by those in power, there is not enough corrosion to avert the will of the American people to assert their freedom.
What to expect (Score:3)
As always, always, with government involvement expect these (in no particular order)
The only 'redeeming' quality of this just maybe creation of alternative Internet infrastructure driven by user demand, outside of normal channels, but this will happen much later.
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Oh, and probably more criminal charges and more people accused of things that weren't crime before, and using any of this for creating the fake war on terror and war on drugs, more racism, more of everything that should be decreased, not increased.
All brought to you by your government.
Three words (Score:2)
Bill naming conventions... (Score:2)
Is it just me or does anyone else think congress people spend way too much tax-payers money coming up with these bill names.
I mean, come on: PROTECT IP, PRECISE, etc etc. It almost seems as if they would get together to discuss the naming instead of the actual bill content.
No?
This bill is good for businesses... (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that I have your attention listen to my argument before you mod...
Regulations provide businesses with cover when sorting goes wrong. The argument goes "we did exactly what the rules required so we can't be liable for what happened;" and thus making an argument for mitigating the cost (to them) of the damages.
In addition, regulations add to the cost of doing business, helping shield companies from too many competitors by raising the barriers to entry.
The only "bad" regulation is one that makes it hard for a company to make more profits or opens them up to additional liability.
How it's going to shake out... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in one of these "critical" industries that will be most likely be included under the benevolent government security umbrella provided by this bill. I've gotten pretty good at predicting how our loving, caring government is likely to respond to this type of challenge, to wit:
After a competitive bid involving only Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft, they will likely hire Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft to tell them what's needed. Unsurprisingly, the solution will include the requirement to purchase lots of expensive products from Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft.
This new regulatory function will obviously need oversight by the government. The government will expand (bloat?) the bureacracy by hiring an excessivly large number of underqualified, overpaid people to monitor compliance with their byzantine rules, which will constantly change to suit their whims. There will be minor incidents, which will be blamed on laziness and non-compliance by the industry. More regulations will be drafted, new equipment will be purchased and the bureacracy will expand even further.
At that point, we commence the never-ending circle of more regulation, more money paid to a select group of "certified" vendors and the unceasing growth of the bureacracy.
I want a bill (Score:4, Funny)
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And don't forget Harry Reid.
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Another yoke around the neck of private businesses in America.
FTFY.