Senate Defeat Of Flawed Cybersecurity Bill Allows Time For Improvement

By Andrea Peterson on Aug 2, 2012 at 7:00 pm

Today the Senate failed to reach cloture on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 by a margin of 52-46 of the necessary 60 votes, effectively killing the current iteration. The bill would have directed the Department of Homeland Security to conduct sector-by-sector cybersecurity risk assessments of critical infrastructure, identify risk-based cybersecurity performance requirements, implement cyber response and restoration plans, develop voluntary requirements for notifications and data-sharing in the event of significant cyber incidents affecting critical infrastructure.

President Obama previously called on Congress to pass the legislation, naming the cyber threat “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face”, despite having threatened to veto CISPA earlier this year due to privacy concerns similar to those raised by some opponents of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012.

Thethreat of cyber attack is very real. Public and private infrastructure around the world are vulnerable to attacks and the rate of incidents involving U.S. critical infrastructure have jumped from 9 in 2009 to 198 in 2011. But there are good reasons why this bill failed:

The figures used to justify the bill don’t stand up to academic scrutiny. Backers of the legislation and bills like it relied on statistics quantifying the financial stakes of cybersecurity from private cybersecurity companies Symantec Corp. and McAfee Inc. to justify immediate action, but ProPublica reports their numbers don’t add up.
It lacked privacy safeguards: While not as hated by privacy advocates as previous cybersecurity proposals, if left un-amended the Cybersecurity Act would have given internet service providers the “explicit right to monitor private user communications.”
The death of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 isn’t the death of cybersecurity. Amendments made to this bill only put privacy advocates in a better position for the next round of debate. As Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel with ACLU, notes:

“When Congress inevitably picks up this issue again, the privacy amendments in this bill should remain the vanguard for any future bills. We’ll continue to work with Congress to make sure that the government’s cybersecurity efforts include privacy protections. Cybersecurity and our online privacy should not be a zero sum game.”

Richardson is right, and this much needed debate will be continued in the future. More details on todays vote via the New York Times.

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Economy

Economist: There’s A ‘Wide Consensus Among Economists’ That America Needs To Raise Taxes To Reduce Deficit

By Travis Waldron on Aug 2, 2012 at 6:35 pm

Betsey Stevenson

There is broad economic consensus among economists that the United States will eventually have to raise taxes to pay down the federal debt, economist Betsey Stevenson said in an interview with ThinkProgress. Raising taxes needed to be a part of the equation — along with spending cuts — to pay down the debt if America is going to “provide the goods and services provided by the government that the American public has said they want,” Stevenson said at the Center for American Progress’ conference on the middle class and the economy Wednesday:

STEVENSON: At the end of the day, we need to find a way once we’re out, once the economy’s recovered, we need to find a way to make sure we’re bringing in the revenues necessary to pay for the things that we want. What we often have in the political discussion is people aren’t going to find a way to bring those two things together. So one side might be emphasizing cutting the programs they don’t particularly like, or cutting taxes, but not in a way that’s going to bring those two things together. And you know, I think there’s wide consensus among economists that there is, that we are going to have to do something that involves raising more revenue, not cutting taxes, but in the long run, raising taxes and cutting spending. We’re going to have to do those two things in order to make sure we have a government that brings in the money necessary to provide the goods and services provided by the government that the American public has said they want.

Watch it:

The “wide consensus among economists” even includes two advisers to the Republican Party’s presidential candidate who supported raising revenues as part of a deficit reduction deal. But while a balanced approach to deficit and debt reduction may be the prescription offered by economists, it isn’t a view widely shared in the GOP. The party continues to oppose higher taxes on the wealthy and has instead proposed slashing tax rates, and during the party’s presidential primary, every candidate said he or she would veto a debt reduction package that contained $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases.

A growing number of Republicans is beginning to recognize that revenues should be a part of the equation, however. Breaking with the pledge they made to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, Republican lawmakers have begun hinting that they support new ways of finding revenue.

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Security

Activists Call For U.S. And Allies To Support Democracy Movement In Sudan

By Ben Armbruster on Aug 2, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Police Attack Protesters In Khartoum

Ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first visit to South Sudan, which officially seceded from Sudan just last year, the Enough Project’s John Prendergast and author Dave Eggers write in the Washington Post that the United States, with partners in the international community, should increase humanitarian aid and support to the nascent pro-democracy there to prevent Sudan from deteriorating into another Syria:

Since South Sudan seceded, [Sudanese President Omar al-]Bashir’s regime has reignited the war in Darfur and is dropping bombs on restive populations in Blue Nile state and the Nuba Mountains. It is stoking potential war with South Sudan and is using excessive force against urban protesters; 2,000 people are now under arrest.

As Sudanese refugees pour into neighboring countries and new reports of thousands of unaccompanied minors — another generation of “lost boys” and “lost girls” — keep Sudan’s suffering on the radar, it’s time to ask what to do about the Bashir government.

Small Arab Spring-like protests began surfacing in Sudan in June which were set off by student objections to austerity measures imposed by the government. However, the movement quickly waned as security forces violently suppressed the movement. Just this week, a local activist group said Sudanese security forces killed 12 protesters demonstrating against high prices and yesterday, police used tear gas and batons to stop protests in Darfur’s biggest city Nyala against the government and its austerity program.

Prendergast and Eggers write that “it’s time for the United States and others to take a stand with those protesting and fighting — and dying — for democracy in Sudan”:

This support can take many forms, including rapid and substantial support to the Sudanese opposition and civil society, which are working assiduously for real democratic transformation. Washington and others should also work within and outside the U.N. Security Council to create a meaningful consequence for Khartoum’s aerial bombing and humanitarian aid blockade.

“If change can be achieved in Sudan, the country could become a catalyst for peace in the region,” they write, “rather than the engine of war and terror it has been for nearly a quarter-century.”

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NEWS FLASH

CHART: Predatory For-Profit Colleges Spend More On Recruiting Than Instruction | Two reports this week further exposed the predatory for-profit college industry’s misplaced priorities. In one, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee, revealed that the schools place corporate profitability above student outcomes, and pay their executives accordingly. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions showed that the schools are essentially using taxpayer subsidies to finance their aggressive recruiting and regulatory manipulation. Based on the Senate’s findings, the Economic Policy Institute put together this chart showing that for-profit schools put more money into recruitment — and pocket more in profits — than they spend on instruction:

Climate Progress

Iowa’s GOP Governor Blasts Romney Campaign On Wind Tax Credits: They Need To ‘Come Out Here To The Real World’

By Stephen Lacey on Aug 2, 2012 at 5:44 pm

Now that Mitt Romney’s campaign has officially declared the candidate’s desire to kill tax credits for wind while maintaining tax credits for the mature oil and gas industries, Midwestern Republicans are not happy.

Iowa Republican Representative Tom Latham said Romney’s decision “shows a lack of full understanding of how important the wind energy tax credit is for Iowa and our nation.”

And Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the man working behind the scenes to get an extension of the tax credit for wind, said he thinks “people that didn’t know what they were doing said it.”

In an interview with Radio Iowa today, Republican Governor Terry Branstad also had strong words for Romney’s campaign, saying they “need to get out here in the real world and find out what’s really going on” before abandoning support for the industry. The wind industry supports 7,000 jobs in Iowa and makes up 20 percent of the state’s electricity.

Branstad said he’d like to speak with Romney personally about the issue:

“I hope to have that opportunity…. The statement has been made by somebody involved in his campaign, not by Governor Romney. And I think there’s a confusion on their part.

“We think it needs to be continued, not forever, but it does need to be continued for a while and the result is it’s been a very good thing for Iowa in terms of 20% of our energy is now generated by wind. We now have a lot of farmers that receive rent from having wind turbines on their property and we have a lot of jobs associated with it so we think he needs to be educated as to how important this is and I’m hopeful that we can see.. they’re lumping the two together and they need to understand there is a differential… And Senator Grassley is working really hard to get this extended.”

Reporter: “But on his campaign website for months, he has called them wind mills, he doesn’t call them wind turbines and he says they are as economically unproductive as solar energy.”

Branstad: “They don’t understand. You’ve got a bunch of people that have put the website together that are a bunch of east Coast people that need to get out here in the real world and find out what’s really going on.”

The wind tax credit, which has helped the wind industry drop costs by 90 percent and compete with the heavily subsidized coal and gas sectors, is set to expire at the end of this year. Already, wind companies are laying off employees and cancelling factories. Navigant Consulting estimates that up to 37,000 jobs could be lost if the credit is allowed to expire.

Fellow Republicans aren’t just concerned about the economic impact. They’re also concerned about potential political fallout in a region where wind is such an important piece of the economy. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Iowa Republican Representative Steve King implied he thinks the tax credit issue could have an impact:

“We need to win Iowa this time. President Obama thinks it’s a must-win state for him, and I think it’s a can-win state for Mitt Romney, but this wind piece.…”

He faded off without finishing the sentence — unsure what Romney’s stance on wind will do to the candidate’s political prospects.

Health

CDC: Smokers Are Ditching Cigarettes For Cheaper Tobacco Options

By Guest Blogger on Aug 2, 2012 at 5:30 pm

The consumption of loose tobacco and cigars increased a remarkable 123.1 percent from 2000 to 2011 despite an overall downward trend of tobacco consumption, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Annual cigarette consumption declined each year during 2000–2011, but the amount of loose pipe tobacco sold last year was enough to make 17.5 billion cigarettes, suggesting that certain smokers have switched from traditional cigarettes to other tobacco products in the wake of the 2009 federal law that created tax differences between product types:

This analysis shows that cigarette consumption continues to decline in the United States, a trend that has persisted since the 1960s. However, recent changes in consumption patterns, particularly increases in large cigar and pipe tobacco use, have resulted in a slowing of the decline in consumption of all combustible tobacco, and indicate that certain cigarette smokers have switched to using lower-taxed noncigarette combustible products. Moreover, a 2012 Surgeon General’s report found that youths and young adults had even higher rates of cigar use and simultaneous use of multiple tobacco products.

Tobacco companies have always had a knack for adapting. In the 1950s and 60s, as a wave of new research began to show the harmful effects of smoking, Camel coined the “more doctors smoke camels” refrain to ease consumer fears. According to the report:

Recent analysis of excise tax data for pipe tobacco, roll-your-own cigarette tobacco, small cigars, and large cigars reveals that the tobacco industry is adapting the marketing and production of cigars and roll-your-own tobacco products to minimize federal excise tax and thus reduce these tobacco products’ prices compared with cigarettes. [...] The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommends modifying federal tobacco taxes to eliminate large tax differentials between roll-your-own and pipe tobacco and small and large cigars. In addition, because Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations currently do not apply to cigars and pipe tobacco, these products can be produced with flavoring, can be labeled with misleading descriptors such as “light” or “low tar,” and can be marketed and sold with fewer restrictions than apply to cigarettes.

Marketing a tobacco product as “light” or “mild” is blatantly misleading. Under the 2010 FDA rule, it’s now illegal for the tobacco industry to do so: Marlboro Lights are now “Marlboro Golds” and Camel Lights are “Camel Blue.” As the CDC report notes, though, these regulations do not apply to “roll your own” type products — which are much cheaper than packaged cigarettes but just as deadly. The solution, according to the report, is to increase prices, which “has been one of the most effective ways to reduce tobacco use and prevent youth smoking initiation.”

– Steven Perlberg

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LGBT

Responding To Requests For Clarity On Same-Sex Binational Couples, DHS Offers More Confusion

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Aug 2, 2012 at 5:25 pm

Credt: America's Voice

On Wednesday, over 80 members of congress called on the Department of Homeland Security to offer some clarity to same-sex, binational couples who are in immigration limbo because of the Defense of Marriage Act. Such couples would be considered eligible for green cards if the federal government recognized their marriages. Instead, they live in fear that they could be forced to leave the country or live separately. And while the government has promised prosecutorial discretion for low-priority cases, DHS never clarified whether being in a relationship would help a case be considered low-priority.

DHS today responded to the Members’ calls for clarity with an assurance that “ties to the United States as demonstrated by his or her same-sex marriage” are be “low priority.” It seems to indicate — though not directly — that being in an LGBT relationship will be a positive contributing factor in making cases low priority:

“[W]hen exercising prosecutorial discretion in enforcement matters, DHS looks at the totality of the circumstances presented in individual cases, including whether an individual has close family ties to the United States as demonstrated by his or her same-sex marriage or other longstanding relationship to a United States citizen,” Peter Boogaard told BuzzFeed in response to a question posed by a reporter on Monday[...]
Boogaard told BuzzFeed that the department would be continuing to enforce DOMA — which prevents green cards from being issued to foreign same-sex partners of Americans — “unless and until Congress repeals it, or there a final judicial determination that it is unconstitutional.” The Obama administration has noted that continued enforcement since President Obama and the Department of Justice announced in February 2011 they would no longer be defending DOMA in court challenges.

There is reason to be cautious, though. A year ago, when DHS announced prosecutorial discretion, couples were hopeful that they would be considered low priority. But when pressed after just a few months for some concrete commitment on how it would affect same-sex couples, DHS failed to confirm to members of congress that those relationships would help individuals get relief.

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NEWS FLASH

Congressman Gives His Statement In Spanish At Hearing For English-Only Bill | Rep. Steve King (R-IA) pushed for his colleagues to approve his bill that would make English the nation’s official language during a hear about the measure today. Immigration activists argue that it would isolate immigrant communities, but King claimed the English-only bill was necessary for national unity, which “is where our strength is.” But before King could argue that “our language is getting subdivided,” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) offered his statement — in Spanish — to make the point that the U.S. always has been a multilingual nation. Watch part of Conyers statement:

Alyssa

How Malekith, the Next ‘Thor’ Supervillain, Makes the Avengers Universe Make Sense

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Aug 2, 2012 at 5:07 pm

As reported late yesterday, Christopher Eccleston will play Malekith The Accursed, the big bad in Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor’s first forary into the Marvel universe, Thor: The Dark World. Though he’s been eclipsed by David Tennant and Matt Smith, Eccleston’s melancholy turn as the Doctor was terrific, with a sense of brooding, cosmic scale that should fit supervillainy nicely. Both the character, a shape-shifting dark elf, and one of the most important arcs he’s associated with, an attempted coup by secrecy of the throne of Asgard, seem like an excellent fit for the world Marvel’s building, and to leverage Taylor’s Game of Thrones experience.

In that arc that sounds most promising, Malekith has Loki switch places with him in prison, something that might be easy to accomplish if Loki’s going to get thrown in Asgard Jail after Thor brings him home after the events of The Avengers. He then disguises himself as Balder, an ally of the Warriors Three (Thor’s main men), who wasn’t a character in Thor, who is apparently about to be crowned king of Asgard. It’s the kind of thing that could make for terrific nasty court politics and dramatic and unexpected showdowns in those settings. Taylor’s proved himself a nice hand in those sorts of emotional situations—he directed “Baelor,” the tremendous first-season episode of Game of Thrones in which King Joffrey orders the former hand of the King Ned Stark executed in front of his daughters, and “Fire and Blood,” in which Dany reveals herself with her dragons. The man knows how to stage an announcement of a new and dramatically different identity or worldview.

And a disguise story could also be a setup for a larger Avengers arc. One of the best-executed parts of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers was Hawkeye’s brianwashing by Loki, and the sense of betrayal his teammates experienced, the loss Black Widow felt, and his shame when he came back to himself. Similarly, if the Skrulls are going to play a role in future Avengers storylines, it would be a shame not to make use of their shape-shifting abilities in addition to those nifty ridged chins, a plot device that could gel nicely with that sense of uncertainty, loss, and hollowing-out that was present in Hawkeye’s storyline. And a Malekith conflict that also involved swapping and surrendering identities would be in keeping with those themes.

Much of the conflict in The Avengers—and the reason the finale was so satisfying—was driven by the characters attempts to come to truly know each other. Captain America wants to know if Tony Stark is sincere or a callow playboy. Tony wants to know if Cap’s a relic, and if Bruce Banner has gotten comfortable with his inner rage. Nick Fury has a role and an agenda he successfully conceals for the entire film while his men and women are busy figuring Loki out. When they all trusted each other, knew each other’s capabilities, and could work together instinctively, only then could they stop the invasion, working together at the top of their capabilities.

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Economy

GOP Governor Schools Romney On Wind: ‘Get Out Here In The Real World To Find Out What’s Really Going On’

By Rebecca Leber on Aug 2, 2012 at 4:44 pm

Days after Mitt Romney’s campaign announced his opposition to extending the wind production tax credit, Romney campaigned in Colorado, a swing state that supported 4,000-5,000 wind jobs in 2011. He included one gratuitous mention of renewable energy in his speech that ranked energy as his top priority, saying “I like renewables.” How he plans to grow renewables is unclear, since the production tax credit supports up to 37,000 wind jobs, and is set to expire at the end of 2012.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad had harsh words for Romney’s anti-wind position, which would affect the state’s 7,000 wind jobs:

“It needs to be continued, not forever, but it does need to be continued for a while and the result is it’s been a very good thing for Iowa in terms of 20 percent of our energy is now generated by wind,” Branstad said.

“We have a lot of farmers that receive rent from having wind turbines on their property and we have a lot of jobs associated with it.” [...]

Branstad blamed “confusion” in the Romney campaign for Romney’s stand against the tax break for wind energy production. [...]

“They don’t understand,” Branstad said. “You’ve got a bunch of people that have put that website together that are bunch of east coast people that need to get out here in the real world to find out what’s really going on.”

Republicans in wind states like Iowa, Utah, and Colorado are seemingly in denial on where Romney stands:

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-IA) said: “I think people that didn’t know what they were doing said it, because he was over in Poland — he obviously wasn’t thinking about wind energy. I don’t think it’s going to stand. … I don’t think that that’s the real position of the party because they said that they were going to consult me on this stuff, and they haven’t gotten my view.”

SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R-UT), quoted in the Wall Street Journal: ”It’s just one of the things that is still a little cloudy in my mind as to where he really does stand on it.” Mr. Hatch said he thinks that a phase-out of the tax credit–instead of outright elimination–”might be more consistent with Gov. Romney’s feelings anyway as he looks at it thoroughly.”

REP. TOM LATHAM (R-IA) said Romney’s position reflects “a lack of full understanding of how important the wind energy tax credit is for Iowa and our nation. It’s the wrong decision. Wind energy represents one of the most innovative and exciting sectors of Iowa’s economy.”

Romney’s announcement may have initially derailed congressional negotiations on extending the credit, though a bipartisan panel of Senators included a possible extension today.

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