special interest

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

A top House Republican is planning to propose that Internet service providers be required to store information about their customers to aid police in criminal investigations, CNET has learned.
But a recent draft has one huge exception: wireless companies aren't included.

That appears to be the result of lobbying from wireless providers, which don't want to have to comply with any new governmental mandates. But the exemption has already drawn the ire of the U.S. Justice Department, which says it doesn't go far enough and is likely to attract strong opposition from cable and DSL providers that would be the ones singled out for regulation.

CTIA, the wireless trade association, declined to answer questions about its involvement in drafting the exception, saying through a spokesman only that "we are committed to working with the committee on the legislation."

The committee preparing the bill is the House Judiciary Committee, headed by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who has previously expressed support for mandatory requirements governing the retention of user data. The bill will be part of a larger measure dealing with strengthening criminal sanctions against child pornography.

I am so sick of hearing Republicans like John Boehner say they are there to “represent the people”. Bullshit! They are there to represent special interest. If it was the other way around then they would listen to poll results like this:

Raising taxes on the rich beats out cuts to defense spending, Medicare or Social Security as U.S. adults' top preference on how to close the deficit, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.

Sixty-one percent of Americans said that increasing taxes to the wealthy should be the first step toward balancing the budget.

Yet the Republicans were willing to let tax cuts for the middle and lower class expire in order to protect tax cuts for the top 2% of this country. The Republicans are nothing but the whores of the ultra-rich.

It looks like special interest might put the breaks on an economic stimulus package. Also worth reading - Paul Krugman points out that the Republicans might block any packages unless Bush's tax cuts are made permanent.