By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:40pm
Cybersecurity legislation is on the Senate floor at this very moment, and critical votes could start as early as this evening. Here’s your primer on what’s at stake and how we expect things to go down.
Where are we in the process? Sen. Reid filed cloture on the bill last night, which means he’s ready to try for that 60-vote procedural threshold (which, according to the Senate rules, will determine whether they will move on and fully consider the bill). If he doesn’t strike a deal with Republicans sometime today, that vote will happen tomorrow morning. If his gamble pays off and he gets his 60 votes, the Senate will then turn to amendments, and hold the final vote by Friday. Of course, if there are not 60 votes, the bill is done for now, with a big question mark of what will happen when Congress comes back in the fall.
By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:42pm
On Tuesday, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) signed on as a co-sponsor to the Student Non-Discrimination Act. What’s the big deal you might be asking, particularly on a bill that already has the support of more than 160 House members?
What makes Rep. Clyburn’s co-sponsorship so significant is that, for the first time, every member of the House Democratic Leadership – Minority Leader Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Whip Hoyer (D-Md.), and Assistant Minority Leader Clyburn – are now SNDA co-sponsors.
By Jesselyn McCurdy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:54pm
The U.S. Sentencing Commission is in the process of determining the issues that it will prioritize 2013. The commission embarks on this process every year and invites the public to suggest what it thinks the commission should concentrate its efforts on for the upcoming year.
While there is nothing new about the commission prioritizing tasks such as drafting sentencing guidelines for newly enacted legislation, what is new this year is that both the ACLU and the Department of Justice (and likely other organizations) have identified the growing crisis of the federal prison population as a priority that the commission should focus attention on.
By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:18pm
Update: Since this piece was posted, the ACLU has filed FOIA requests seeking more information on data-mining by the NCTC. Read more »
What if a government spy agency had power to copy and data mine information about ordinary Americans from any government database? This could include records from law enforcement investigations, health information, employment history, travel and student records. Literally anything the government collects would be fair game, and the original agency in charge of protecting the privacy of those records would have little say over whether this happened, or what the spy agency did with the information afterward. What if that spy agency could add commercial information, anything it – or any other federal agency – could buy from the huge data aggregators that are monitoring our every move?
By Chris Calabrese, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:11pm
Later Thursday night Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) filed an important amendment to the Senate cybersecurity legislation to begin to reign in the information the federal government collects on all of us. We don’t think about it much but the federal government collects an enormous amount of personal information on a regular basis: in order for citizens to receive benefits and services, to exercise fundamental rights like voting or petitioning the government, for licensing everything from guns to businesses, for employment, education and for many types of health care. In short this information collection is nearly ubiquitous in American life.
A federal court in Colorado today put a temporary halt on the implementation of the Obama administration’s contraceptive coverage rule, with respect to one company. The contraceptive coverage rule requires insurance plans to cover contraception and stop routinely discriminating against women. The decision, if upheld, could pave the way for businesses to use their owners’ religion as an excuse to discriminate.
By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:20pm
The ACLU has been invited to offer our civil liberties and civil rights recommendations to the Democratic National Committee’s “platform drafting committee,” which is currently meeting in Minneapolis to begin the process of putting together the 2012 Democratic National Platform. While the ACLU is a nonpartisan organization, we welcome opportunities to infuse a respect for and commitment to civil liberties in the political process. We would also be pleased to offer our views to the Republican National Committee’s platform drafters.
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:28pm
Last week, we gave you a quick rundown of the new privacy additions to S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Also known as the Lieberman-Collins bill, this legislation provides comprehensive cybersecurity reform.
By Dan Zeidman, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:00pm
Across the country, states are working to reform their juvenile justice systems in order to emphasize youth rehabilitation and violence prevention. Just this past Thursday, the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians – which was created by Gov. Nathan Deal – held its first meeting and discussed its top priority of crafting a juvenile justice reform bill. In order to draft the reform legislation, the panel is looking at states such as Texas and Ohio, which have been able to reform their juvenile justice systems and reduce the number of children they incarcerate by, in part, emphasizing alternatives to incarceration for youth and, when appropriate, reducing the amount of time children spend in prison. These changes have played a significant role in reducing the states’ juvenile prison populations and saving scarce taxpayer dollars while maintaining public safety.
By Patrick DePoy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 10:16am
This week, Washington will host the 2012 International AIDS Conference. This is the first time since 1990 that the U.S. will host the major international gathering on the AIDS epidemic. The reason for this is that in 1987, Congress passed legislation prohibiting people living with HIV from traveling into the United States. Under the ban, those living with HIV were listed as having a “communicable disease of public health significance.” Rooted in the fear and prejudice that was an ever-present reality in those days, the ban imposed an unfair burden on tourists, short-term visitors, and foreigners seeking to live in the U.S. In 2009, President Obama finally lifted the travel ban, following a 2008 statutory repeal vote in Congress, correctly pointing out that if the U.S. wants to be a world leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS, “we need to act like it.”
