Yesterday the draconian Republican leadership in the House decided to rush through the CISPA legislation:
Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that’s not even the worst part.
CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, is a total invasion of our rights in this country. Basically it allows the government to conduct cyber surveillance and use that information for about anything – all without the oversight of a court issued warrant.
So who voted for this? Well the vote was pretty much party line, with the “small government, protect our freedoms” Republicans voting for it. The vote was also scheduled for today, but after some shenanigans the Republican leadership moved the vote up to yesterday, ignoring their pledges to let legislation be posted 72 hours before a vote. That move was done after some serious changes were made to the bill yesterday:
The vote followed the debate on amendments, several of which were passed. Among them was an absolutely terrible change (pdf and embedded below—scroll to amendment #6) to the definition of what the government can do with shared information, put forth by Rep. Quayle. Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government’s power, even though it in fact expands it by adding more items to the list of acceptable purposes for which shared information can be used. Even more astonishingly, it passed with a near-unanimous vote. The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.
And there is a perfect example of how Republicans fool their followers into believing they have their best interests at heart. Quayle’s amendment was put in to “limit” the government’s power, when in fact it greatly expands it. How in the hell is that considered “smaller government”?
Luckily we do have someone watching out for the people. President Obama has said he would veto this bill.
So when you worry about big brother intruding on your lives just remember that it’s the GOP who constantly pushes this stuff through. They pushed for warrantless wire taps. They want to tell a woman what she can/can’t do with their body. They want to tell you what you can watch on TV and now they want to create a bigger brother to monitor everything you do online.
The GOP – defending big government since 2001!