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CISPA passes House in unexpected last-minute vote

The House of Representatives has approved Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act with a vote count of 248-168. The bill is now headed for the Senate. President Barack Obama will be able to sign or cancel it pending Senate approval.

Initially slated to vote on the bill Friday, the House of Representatives decided to pass Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) Thursday after approving a number of amendments.

US Senate offices are experiencing a huge backlash of grassroots opposition to the bill -- called the Food Safety Modernization Act -- as virtually every health freedom organization, family farm group and even dietary supplement companies have aligned to oppose this new bill.

On Monday evening, Senate Republicans blocked a vote on a bill that would force corporations, unions, and shadowy nonprofits such as Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS to reveal the biggest donors behind their political ads. The vote was 51 to 44, leaving Democrats 9 votes short from being able to proceed to a full vote on the bill. The goal of the DISCLOSE Act of 2012, introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), is simple: Shine light on the dark money in American elections.

A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate requiring all airports to use full-body scanners lacks sufficient privacy safeguards, says a prominent watchdog group.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center says the bill, introduced in the Senate by Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), "contains particularly weak privacy provision[s] that ignore many of the problems with the devices already uncovered."

The Senate voted Wednesday to extend for a year key provisions of the nation's counterterrorism surveillance law that are scheduled to expire at the end of the month. In agreeing to pass the bill, Senate Democrats retreated from adding new privacy protections to the USA Patriot Act.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the controversial ‘Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act’ today, a bill that could be used to crack down on many BitTorrent sites and other file-sharing platforms. The bill would give the Department of Justice the unprecedented power to take over domain names of websites that are deemed to facilitate copyright infringement.

The Republican-controlled Arkansas state Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that would exempt from public disclosure the names and zip codes of gun owners.

A bill now being considered for approval by the California State Senate could cost families and people who hire others to help around the house. Called the "Domestic Workers Bill of Rights", the point of the bill is to "extend basic, humane labor protections to thousands of nannies, caregivers, and housecleaners. This legislation helps us to bring a critical workforce out of the shadows and into the light of day."
[No word on the estimated amount of "tax revenue" would be collected.]

Anonymous - Message to the American People

Dear brothers and sisters. Now is the time to open your eyes!

In a stunning move that has civil libertarians stuttering with disbelief, the U.S. Senate has just passed a bill that effectively ends the Bill of Rights in America.

The National Defense Authorization Act is being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn't apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill, it essentially says it can apply to Americans "if we want it to.