By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 24th at 11:00 PM  | 

As if it’s not bad enough that Barack Obama and the DHS are planning to defy the Congress and rule by decree on Cybersecurity, we’ve now got Jay Rockefeller using intimidation to try to apply a chilling effect to any opposition to the leader.

The dumbest part? Even as one part of the administration pushes cybersecurity, another pushes for back doors, which is a massive reduction in security, never mind the government spying angle.

Hoo boy. Steve Womack in the House is jumping into the sales tax debate, proposing a similar plan to the Streamlined Sales Tax-backing Marketplace Fairness Act already in the Senate. I expect one of these to pass under President Romney.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 20th at 12:00 AM  | 

I like Moe’s title here: The cyber-libertarians discover that liberals are not cyber-libertarians. The question is, will they learn, or like bad scientists will they ignore the results of the experiment and vote Obama again?

Especially as the President’s team is shameless in its openly plotting to defy the Congress’s rejection of the Cybersecurity Act by Lieberman and Collins.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 17th at 11:30 PM  | 

Chuck Schumer is introducing the BRAINS Act and it’s not even about zombie preparedness. Come on, get on the ball guys. Well, it’s actually a bill about getting smart people into the US from other countries. However, rather than lock them down and distort the market with H1-Bs, we’ll give them a path to a green card. Sounds good to me. Though I also like Lamar Smith’s eliminating of the diversity lottery.

And the administration admits rule by decree is in the works for cybersecurity. Night and day. That’s the difference between Mitt Romney and Barry Obama, folks.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 15th at 02:00 AM  | 

Look, 11,000 pages of regulations have been added under Barack Obama. Consider that the Federal Register only needed 71,000 pages total in 1975. These regulations are being added without transparency, as well.

This is too much, and he wants to grow government further with an executive order on Cybersecurity, which is rightly opposed by a group of Senators in the Wall Street Journal. Enough is enough.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 13th at 03:30 AM  | 

It is done! Privacy is saved in America? The huge looming threat of Myspace has been defeated by FTC! Don’t you feel so much safer now that the dynamic, active regulators of the Obama administration have clamped down on a competitor of Facebook?

Shame on me. Remember when I went with the claim that Anonymous took down GoDaddy? Well, It may have been an opportunistic claim.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 11th at 02:00 AM  | 

Out of control. It seems like only defeating Barack Obama in an election will truly stop this administration. Sure, for now they’ve been scared off of the Internet Tax, but with Net Neutrality and the Cybersecurity Executive Order still brewing, the Obama administration has more power grabs up its sleeves than we should ever have allowed.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 8th at 04:00 AM  | 

Those nogoodniks online still need to beware, as Internet gangster Josh Schichtel, the creator (or operator, it’s hard to tell) of a 72,000 node botnet found out when he got socked with 30 months in prison and a $1,500 in fines.

And speaking of bad guys, Wikileaks, oh wait no, WCITLeaks. These are the good guys, trying to bring transparency to the ITU’s shadowy multinational negotiations of communications matters. And they’re looking to do more, going from pure leaking to adding policy and advocacy content.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  September 1st at 02:00 AM  | 

Governors Robert Bentley, Mitch Daniels, Dennis Daugaard, Bill Haslam, Paul LePage, Rick Snyder, and Tom Corbett are part of push for the Marketplace Fairness act. I’ve come across a July letter to John Boehner, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, and Nancy Pelosi. I find it odd they’d do so now, unless they think they have no chance under a potential Republican Congress. Could that be the case? I wonder.

And yes, those are all Republican governors, some of whom were part of the 2010 landslide. It’s only Republicans I’m seeing back MFA, not Democrats. Democrats are fine with just passing new taxes or raising old ones. They aren’t as hard up to maximize collections of old taxes as Republicans are.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 16th at 12:00 AM  | 

I guess legislatively it’ll be slow going the rest of this year, thanks to the elections. So Tech at Night just may be shorter for a while to come. That’s good for my sleep schedule, I believe. Though the aftermath continues of Harry Reid’s failure to ram through the Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act, as John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and other Republicans criticized Harry Reid for | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 7th at 03:30 AM  | 

We had no Tech at Night on Friday becuase I was at the Gathering in Jacksonville. Hope those who went enjoyed it, and that those who weren’t able to attend can make it next year! So, Harry Reid offered to let Republicans fix Lieberman-Collins. Republicans took him up on that, and he was unhappy. So he tried to ram it through after all. Republicans objected, | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 2nd at 12:00 AM  | 

Lieberman-Collins is in trouble! There is apparently some misinformation going around. I’ve seen people claiming that gun control is in the bill, when it’s just an amendment possibly to be added, along with an anti-Obamacare amendment going around. Further, The Hill posted and pulled a story saying Harry Reid postponed the Cybersecurity Act. But it looks like I was right to respect Republican attempts to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 31st at 02:30 AM  | 

Having decided to give amending Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act a go, Republicans now engage in that amendment process. Though, is it unfair of me to point out that it would be against Symantec’s best interests for American Internet security to improve? Why not to trust Senate Democrats on cybersecurity, in a nutshell: We’re criminalizing victimhood with this new Patrick Leahy proposal. Insane.

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 28th at 12:30 AM  | 

Senate Republicans have decided to take Harry Reid at his word that Republicans will have the opportunity to amend the Lieberman-Collins cybersecurity bill. So, many Republicans voted for advancing the bill, which passed 84-11. And oh boy it needs amending. Who are you going to believe? For it is Barack Obama. Against have been Kay Bailey Hutchison, John McCain, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Heritage, and | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 26th at 02:15 AM  | 

Right now the top issues are both getting lots of attention in the Senate. One is the cybersecurity bill. It’s been difficult for me to find out much about what’s going on with it, and it turns out there’s a reason. Sources familiar with the situation indicate to me that Harry Reid has been negotiating with Republicans in bad faith. Even Republicans who love to | Read More »

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  July 24th at 02:30 AM  | 

It’s easy to see why there’s sudden, strong opposition to the Marketplace Fairness Act, as yet another Republican governor, Terry Branstad, backs the bill. I again state my opposition to the lousy language backing the bill, including “fairness” and “loophole”. Yes, that language is being driven by marketplace losers, but both sides of this debate are ponying up cash. I favor the bill on its | Read More »