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November 20, 2006
Pit Bulls and Show Horses
The importance of being Henry.
, Capitol Hill
November 20, 2006
The Freshman Class on Marriage
Okay, so it turns out that Brooklyn's 11th congressional district may not be representative of the rest of the country. Not only is our newly elected congresswoman, Yvette Clark, on record in strong support of allowing men and men or women and women to get married, she ran against against a Libertarian/Republican candidate who joked on the Hill's Congress Blog that gay marriage "should be not only legal but compulsory. I'd like to see those guys get up each morning and apologize just like us straight married guys do. Give us something in common." But the Blade, DC's gay newspaper (and at least a few years ago, home of the city's very best apartment listings) finds that Clark joins a congressional freshman class with wide range of takes on marriage equality.
(via My Left Nutmeg)
2, Capitol Hill
November 16, 2006
If not Jane or Alcee then...
In case you're wondering, the number three Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee is Silvestre Reyes. You're forgiven if you just said "who?" Seems as if he was an INS agent and official in Texas for some 26 years before coming to Congress in 1996.
, Capitol Hill
November 16, 2006
There Must Have Been a Voting Machine Malfunction
The race is over, folks, and it appears as if we lost. MSNBC is reporting that Henry Waxman will not be the House Majority Leader of the 110th Congress. Congratulations go out to Leader-elect Steny Hoyer and to the rest of the field.
2, Capitol Hill
August 11, 2006
FYI, CDT and DOPA
Among the not-fans of the Deleting Online Predators Act recently passed by
the House is the Center for Democracy and Technology. DOPA, again, requires
that public libraries ban kids from accessing "social networking"
sites. I like CDT a lot -- they're a great, thoughoutful go-to group on information
policy. They've considered DOPA, and they seem
a bit in shock over how egregiously it limits access to information. (Alas,
that link goes to a pdf. The reason for why to release only pdf, I do not know.)
What they found:
DOPA would block minors' minor's access (and burden adults' access)
to a category of speech – mere conversation, including social, political,
medical, and an unlimited range of topics – that no court has ever allowed
the government to censor or regulate.
...
[T]he vast bulk of the speech blocked by DOPA – teens chatting with
their friends, posting photos and linking to their favorite music –
is perfectly healthy (or at least harmless), and is completely legal.
...
DOPA would flatly prohibit a library or school from ever allowing a minor
to participate in, for example, an online conversation among teens discussing
the latest movies (or any other topic deemed not to be "educational").
For libraries, the flat prohibition would be true even if a child's parent
gave permission for such access.
...
Critically, for many users, the sites blocked by DOPA provide the users'
only source and outlet for political information. Indeed, a range of political
candidates have created campaign sites on the social networking services. Blocking
access to, and the ability to express, this type of speech strikes at the core
of the First Amendment.
Wes Clark, for example, has a
MySpace page up ("Male, 61 years old, LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas")
so that he can talk to the young people where they congregate. Indeed, the General's
got 317 friends so far. Under DOPA, a 17 year-old student would be banned from
walking into her local public library and pulling up Clark's profile. Of course,
she could still do it at home, if she's lucky enough to have a computer at home. CDT's
concerned about this too:
Raising both constitutional and important policy concerns, DOPA would
also be a major step backwards in our nation's effort to close the gaping digital
divide that exists between affluent families able to bring broadband into their
home and those families whose children can only access the Internet at a school
or library.
DOPA was an end run around the legislative process. It was never vetted by a
congressional committee. It passed through the House under suspension of the
rules. What that that all means is that there was no real debate, even though
it will limit the ability of poorer kids to access a great deal of information,
connect with their friends, expand their worlds. Course, it did pass one crucial
test -- Congress's pedophilia rule. Even the crappiest bit of legislation that
mentions the molestation of kids gets as free pass. This one had clear sailing
the minute that they put "predators" in the title. Again, almost every
single member of Congress gave a thumbs up to the bill -- the
vote was 410-15.
2, Capitol Hill
August 2, 2006
Your United States Congress at Work, Freedom Fries Edition
As part of their ongoing commitment to taking care of business, the House has gone back to selling "French fries." For me, the worst part of it might be that -- in the Longworth Cafeteria at least -- they were actually called "Boardwalk Fries®" until Bob Ney got to them...
, Capitol Hill
August 2, 2006
Your United States Congress at Work, the DOPA Edition
Last week the House passed DOPA, the Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006. ("Deleting," get it? That's something you do with a computer.) What DOPA does is to require that libraries that receive a certain kind of federal funding ban kids from social networking sites. The idea is to protect kids from the menace of MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook. But how does the bill define social networking sites? That's anything that:
(i) is offered by a commercial entity;
(ii) permits registered users to create an on-line profile that includes detailed personal information;
(iii) permits registered users to create an on-line journal and share such a journal with other users;
(iv) elicits highly-personalized information from users; and
(v) enables communication among users.
If you're thinking, "hey, that sounds like my personal pages on Amazon! Or the profile I have on a group blog! Is Congress blocking those sorts of things?" As I find myself often saying when talking about the United States Congress, you're thinking too much.
The point isn't to actually do any sort of constructive good, it's to pander. Pander pander pander. Pander your pants off and see if you can get reelected. This bill came out of polling done by the Republican party on how they can appeal to suburban voters. That's it. If you think that it matters to them at all whether one kid is protected by the "menace" of MySpace from this bill, again, thinking too much. If you think that they actually considered that this bill is going to disproportionately affect poor kids who can't afford their own home computers -- again, thinking too much.
Some folks are saying that DOPA was completely rewritten the day before it passed the House, and never was vetted by a House committee. Which would be shocking if we actually thought that anyone up there cared about the legislative process.
Think about this. At BlogHer this weekend, social networking researcher danah boyd mentioned somewhat off-handedly that teenaged kids are moving off of MySpace and onto smaller social networking sites. Seems that MySpace has lost some of its cool. This was confirmed for me by a smart young guy that I work with who is focusing on social networking and youth voters. He says that some young people are moving to things to Xanga and other sites that are more targeted. But social networking sites aren't like file-sharing, where you can hope to block them out by blocking specific ports. There's no technical calling card of social networking sites that the computer or network can pickup on and filter. So it's going to be someone's job to keep a up-to-date list of what's the new MySpace or Facebook these days. Yup, that's what I want my federal government and our nation's librarians doing with our time.
I know that this is a bit heated (for me), but this just burns me up. I've heard that there's not much prospect for this in the Senate. (Another saying I rely upon when talking about Congress -- thank God for the United States Senate. It certainly has its troubles, but when you compare it to Romper Room that is the House...) I've heard that Sen. Santorum isn't interested in having this go anywhere, though I can't seem to find any confirmation of that online.
Lest you think that this is a purely Republican problem, the roll call vote on this was 410-15. (Though voting against it were all Dems -- John Conyers, Raul Grijalva, Maurice Hinchey, Mike Honda, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren, Donald Payne, Jan Schakowsky, Bobby Scott, Jose Serrano, Pete Stark, Diane Watson, and Lynn Woolsey.) This isn't a partisan problem. The problem is that we elect people either (a) without a brain or (b) afraid to use it. Enough.
2, Capitol Hill
July 31, 2006
The Congressman and the Consultant
It took me a minute to realize that, hey, I don't work on the Hill anymore. I'm no longer a staffer on the committee of which this guy is chairman! I'm free to say that Rep. Tom Davis's close relationship with the Northern Virginia tech industry is in my experience just how Capitol Hill works -- not quid pro quo necessarily, but somewhat icky in its coziness. Is it wrong to have members of Congress that invested in the personal relationships of the industries he or she oversees? I dunno. I do know that I didn't like it one bit.
, Capitol Hill
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I'm a Brooklyn-based writer who writes on technology and politics, both broadly defined. Oh, and food. This is my online home where I talk about those things and whatever else strikes my fancy. Learn More |
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