Cybersecurity bill to give president new emergency powers

The Hill

By Tony Romm

The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation.

According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack.

The president would then have the ability to initiate those network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a cyberattack of unprecedented scope, the aide said.

Ultimately, the legislation is chiefly the brainchild of Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, respectively. Both lawmakers have long clamored for a federal cybersecurity bill, charging that current measures — including the legislation passed by the House last year — are too piecemeal to protect the country’s Web infrastructure.

Their renewed focus arrives on the heels of two, high-profile cyberattacks last month: A strike on Google, believed to have originated in China, and a separate, more disjointed attack that affected thousands of businesses worldwide.

Rockefeller and Snowe’s forthcoming bill would establish a host of heretofore absent cybersecurity prevention and response measures, an aide close to the process said. The bill will “significantly [raise] the profile of cybersecurity within the federal government,” while incentivizing private companies to do the same, according to the aide.

Additionally, it will “promote public awareness” of Internet security issues, while outlining key protections of Americans’ civil liberties on the Web, the aide continued.

Privacy groups are nonetheless likely to take some umbrage at Rockefeller and Snowe’s latest effort, an early draft of which leaked late last year.

When early reports predicted the cybersecurity measure would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” online privacy groups said they felt that would endow the White House with overly ambiguous and far-reaching powers to regulate the Internet.

The bill will still contain most of those powers, and a “vast majority” of its other components “remain unchanged,” an aide with knowledge of the legislation told The Hill. But both the aide and a handful of tech insiders who support the bill have nonetheless tried to dampen skeptics’ concerns, reminding them the president already has vast — albeit lesser-known — powers to regulate the Internet during emergencies.

It is unclear when Rockefeller and Snowe will finish their legislation. And the ongoing debate over healthcare reform, financial regulatory reform, jobs bills and education fixes could postpone action on the floor for many months.

Both lawmakers heavily emphasized the need for such a bill during a Senate Commerce Committee cybersecurity hearing on Wednesday.

“Too much is at stake for us to pretend that today’s outdated cybersecurity policies are up to the task of protecting our nation and economic infrastructure,” Rockefeller said. “We have to do better and that means it will take a level of coordination and sophistication to outmatch our adversaries and minimize this enormous threat.”

Source:

Judicial Watch Asks Court to Order U.S. Secret Service to Release Hidden Logs of Obama’s White House Visitors

Judicial Watch

Obama Administration Continues to Make Erroneous Claim that Visitor Logs are not subject to FOIA Law

Contact Information:
Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305
Washington, DC

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a “Motion for Partial Summary Judgment” in its lawsuit against the U.S. Secret Service asking the court to order the release of Secret Service logs of White House visitors from January 20, 2009, to August, 10, 2009. The Obama administration continues to advance the extraordinary and erroneous claim that the visitor logs “are not agency records subject to the FOIA [Freedom of Information Act].” As Judicial Watch noted in its complaint filed on December 7, 2009, this claim “has been litigated and rejected repeatedly.”

According to Judicial Watch’s “Motion for Partial Summary Judgment,” filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on February 22, 2010: “At issue here is whether Secret Service visitor logs are agency records subject to the Freedom of Information Act (‘FOIA’), 5 U.S.C. § 552. To date, every court that has reached this issue has concluded that the requested documents are agency records and must be processed in response to a properly submitted FOIA request. As no disputes of material fact exist as to the nature of the records, summary judgment as to this straightforward legal issue should be entered now.”

Noting court precedent, Judicial Watch argued in its motion that the visitor logs were “created by” the U.S. Secret Service and that they remain “under agency control.” Judicial Watch also noted that the U.S. Secret Service had released the visitor logs in response to previous FOIA requests from Judicial Watch and other parties, further demonstrating that these records are under the control of the U.S. Secret Service and subject to FOIA.

In 2009, the Obama White House began to release, in order to settle related litigation, a select number of Secret Service visitor logs to the public. However, tens of thousands of other records continue to be withheld in defiance of FOIA law. Only if visitor logs are released under the law (FOIA), can the American people be assured that the Obama White House is being forthright about who is visiting the White House.

On October 27, at the request of the White House, Judicial Watch staff visited with senior White House officials led by Norm Eisen, Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government, to discuss Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the visitor logs. During the meeting, White House officials offered to make some accommodations to Judicial Watch on the visitor logs and encouraged Judicial Watch to publicly praise the Obama administration’s commitment to transparency. However, the White House refused to abandon its legally indefensible contention that the visitor logs are not subject to FOIA law. In a November 30 letter, Norm Eisen reiterated the Obama administration’s position and requested that Judicial Watch “focus and narrow your request,” prompting Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.

“The Obama administration is trying to evade the Freedom of Information Act in order to protect its hidden Secret Service visitor logs,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Instead of wasting taxpayer resources stonewalling the release of these documents, the Obama administration should respect the rule of law, as well as court precedent, and release all logs of White House visitors immediately. These hidden visitor logs again show the ‘Big Lie’ of Obama’s supposed commitment to transparency.

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House ethics panel legalizes bribery

Capitol Hill Blue

By Doug Thompson

Congressional “pay for play” program

The House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct ruled Friday that bribing a member of Congress is legal as long as that member can come up with another excuse for earmarking money for a campaign contributor.

The panel cleared seven lawmakers who added pork barrel earmarks to bills to spend hundred of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on behalf of companies that poured huge campaign donations into their political warchests.

The 305-page whitewash of a report said it’s OK to accept campaign cash and reward the donor with contracts and earmarks as long as the lawmaker can claim the action was “criteria independent” of the payoff.

The ruling is a slap in the face to a few honest members of Congress who have tried to limit the growing use of earmarks to award those who pump large sums of money into the campaign coffers of elected officials who are willing to perform when paid for services.

With a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations now to spend virtually unlimited amounts on behalf of candidates, the ethics committee ruling opens the door for even more widespread abuse.

“Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member’s actions are being influenced by campaign contributions,” said the report.

The report cleared Reps. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and John P. Murtha (D-Pa), who died this month.

The seven were charged with steering $112 million worth of earmarks for clients of the PMA Group, a lobbying firm, after that firm raised more than $350,000 worth of campaign contributions for the members.

The Justice Department still has an open investigation on PMA and the bribes and the FBI raided the lobbying firm’s office and seized its records. PMA folded after the raid.

Source:

Pelosi: Back the health care bill even if it costs you your job

Capitol Hill Blue

By Doug Thompson on February 28, 2010

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has an incredible message for her Democratic colleagues: Support health care even if it costs them their seat in Congress.

Appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” news talk program, Pelosi said health care is too important to play it safe politically.

“We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. We’re here to do the job for the American people,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi’s ultimatum is not likely to sit well with Democrats facing tough re-election campaigns in an election year when polls show most Americans don’t care for the so-called “reform” packages currently before Congress.

Moderate Democrats have come under fire from constituents over the massive, expensive health care “reform” bills in both the House and Senate. Polls show most Americans don’t support the legislation and recent gains by Republicans in special elections have Democrats nervous

Source:

Judge Andrew Napolitano Natural rights Patriot Act

Thank you Judge Napolitano.

Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban

ABC News

The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

Wednesday Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Obama administration will seek to reinstitute the assault weapons ban which expired in 2004 during the Bush administration.

(AP Photos/ABC News Graphic )

“As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,” Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border.

“I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.” Holder said at a news conference on the arrest of more than 700 people in a drug enforcement crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating in the U.S.

Complete Story:

Sky News’ Dissembler and Propagandist

The Obama File

The Obot, Greg Milam

As you folks know, I have spent the last two years researching the life and times of the ObamaMessiah, and today I just learned something new.  Barack Obama’s birth certificate was destroyed in a fire.

In an article, entitled, “Obama ‘Birther’ Row Rears Its Head Again,” Greg Milam, identified as a “U. S correspondent” for Sky News, the British version of Fox News, has just introduced a whole new reason for Obama not presenting his birth certificate to confirm his eligibility — it was burned in a fire! — poor Barack — everything seems to happen to him.

Milam correctly claims, “The White House has consistently dismissed the issue (of Obama’s eligibility).”

Of course they did.  After all, what can they say?  You couldn’t get a driver’s license with the three pieces of documentation that Obama has released to establish his eligibility: his autobiography, a Hawaiian “Certification of Live Birth,” and two old newspaper clippings.

Then, Milan claims that, “Authorities in Hawaii have provided an electronic record of Obama’s birth….”

This statement is completely false.  No Hawaiian authority, at any time, has ever claimed that Hawaii provided, any one of the THREE evolving copies of Obama’s Certification of Live Birth (COLB), that, over time, were posted on the Internet by Obama’s co-conspirators at the left-wing Annenberg FactCheck.com.  I challenge anyone to produce a statement from any Hawaiian official confirming Milan’s assertion.  It never happened.

But this statement takes the cake! “…because the paper copy was destroyed in a fire which wiped out much of the state’s archives.”

Whoaaa Nelly!  Where in the world did Milam get that one?  Google — Hawaii archive fire — yourself.  See!  Never happened — but I guess if Milan wrote that Obama’s dog ate it, no one would believe it.

Let’s take a look at Obama’s bona fides:

1. A supposed “autobiography,” that Obama acknowledges is full of pseudonyms, composite characters, approximated dialogue, and events out of chronological order — and outright lies.  The life presented in the book is a myth.  Most of what you think you know about Obama comes from this piece of fiction — and most of what you think you know just ain’t so.

2. The “birth announcements” from two Hawaiian newspapers prove nothing.  They could be real as can be, or forgeries.  It doesn’t matter.  There isn’t a court in the country that would accept two old newspaper clippings as evidence of anything.  Those two old newspaper clippings are hearsay.

3. And the bogus COLB is the biggest joke of all.  Only the conspirators know where the three COLBs came from.  They didn’t come from Hawaii.  Beyond that, as discrepancies in the document were identified, the document evolved, like everything else about Obama’s life narrative.

In this image rich file, a genealogist associated with a leading genealogy website, documents the evolution of the FactCheck.org images:

Forgery #1 – The COLB posted on ‘Fight the Smears’ — No Stamp, No Seal, evidence of tampering and forgery.  Debunked by Ron Polirak, Sandra Ramsey Lines, and the author of this document, among others.

Forgery #2 – FactCheck – Two different COLB’s one with a SEAL, however NOT an Official State of Hawaii Department of Health SEAL.

Forgery #3 – FactCheck – COLB without a SEAL, image of COLB being held up. High resolution and NO indicating of a SEAL.

So, how can there be three versions of a document that Hawaii NEVER issued?

And Milam continues to dissemble, writing, “Democrats in Arizona have dismissed the bill…” — Well, now, there’s a surprise!  Democrats may dismiss the bill, but the bill is currently working its way through the Arizona Senate with twelve co-sponsors.  the Arizona House Committee on Government, chaired by Rep. Judy Burges (R-Skull Valley), voted to pass her introduced bill, HB2441, by a vote of 6-1 — similar bills are working their way through the legislative process in 20 states.

Milam quotes a democratic operative as saying, “”The truth is that he was born in the United States and has provided that proof time and time again.” — Watch out! — a democratic beginning a statement with the words, “The truth is…”  You know a lie is coming.  Not that Obama was born in Hawaii.  I give that statement a 97% of being truthful, but the statement, “[Obama] has provided…proof time and time again — no he hasn’t.  There is no PROOF.  No one has provided PROOF.  As a matter of fact, Obama has illegally disbursed almost $2 million dollars from campaign funds to avoid providing proof of eligibility.  Now that he has the power of the Oval Office, he has civil service attorneys illegally representing him in lawsuits demanding he do so.

Milam gets in a shot at Birthers, writing, “The ‘birthers’ are perhaps the most bizarre of the protest movements against the president.” — well the only thing bizarre about that statement is that Milan believes that it is perfectly appropriate for Barack Obama to tell half of America to go screw themselves.  That’s bizarre!  WE the People have a need to know, and a right to know who the hell Barack Obama is — and we don’t — and Obama intends to keep it that way.

The icing on Milan’s cake is an opinion from the addled-brained Jimmy Carter, that anybody who questions Obama is a racist.  Sighhhhhhhhhhhh!

This is what stands for journalism in 2010.

Greg Milam, whose previous claim to fame was being attacked by a cockerel, on air, is either dumb as a brick, or a committed Obama propagandist — probably both.

Udpate:  NoBarck08 says it seems kind of strange that they find a letter from Lincoln in the archives, if it had a fire.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported that that Daniel W. Stowell, director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln at the Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill., and Luella Kurkjian, branch manager of the Hawaii State Archives, displayed documents signed by Lincoln during a news conference yesterday at the Hawaii State Archives Building.

Source:

SEIU Prez Andy Stern Appointed to Federal Deficit Commission?

Canada Free Press

President Obama has today appointed Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern to the federal deficit-reduction commission. And I say, why not? After all union thugs like Stern are one of the root causes of federal deficits so he should know all about them.

Unfortunately, though, Stern only knows how to make deficits worse and knows precisely nothing about cutting them.

// //

Obama also appointed several other big, big campaign donors to this so-called deficit cutting commission, Ann Fudge (over $36,000 donated) and Alice Rivlin (over $47,000).

Of course this is a joke. But the joke is on all of us. As this poseur of a president sits stroking his chin and telling America “let me be clear,” and “make no mistake” that he’s all about fixing things, he hands out plum after plum to his pals on the extreme left.

So the question becomes this: how can a guy whose only goal is to make government more costly, union contracts more enriched, and spending ever greater be qualified to sit on a deficit reduction commission?

Well, he can’t of course.

Like I said, this is just another joke on the country.

Source:

The Name “Obama” Not In Hawaii Birth Database

The Obama File

The Post & Email is reporting that the Hawaii Department of Health has sent them an Adobe document containing an alphabetical list of births, produced from the Hawaii Birth Index database.  The name Obama does not exist.  Here is an image of the “Ob*” page from the document:

Click here to read how John Charlton came into possession of this document.  Verrrrrrrry interesting . . .

Deep in the Heart of Texas

While listening to Sean Hannity on the radio the other day, a lady from the Dallas-Ft. Worth Area called in to let Sean know what she saw while driving.

In the Dallas -Ft. Worth Area there is a business called, Cornish-Burton Septic Service. Nothing special you say? Well under the company logo it reads, Carrying Political Promises.

Nice Job Guys and keep up the good work.

1Dragon