BOR: - Recent Comments

Six Additional Commissioners

shaag78749 — Fri, 24 May 2013 21:38:01 GMT

Since the charter requires that one of the fourteen commissioners be a student, one of the two students among the 60 most qualified will definitely be selected. Here's the charter requirement:
"One commission member shall be a student duly enrolled in a community college or university in the City of Austin and who resides and is registered to vote in the City of Austin."
The other five will be chosen to balance the commission in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender. Here's the relevant charter requirement:
"These six appointees shall be chosen to ensure that the commission reflects the diversity of the City of Austin, including, but not limited to, racial, ethnic, and gender diversity. However, it is not intended that formulas or specific ratios be applied for this purpose. Applicants shall also be chosen based on relevant analytical skills and ability to be impartial. As for geographic diversity, for the first redistricting in 2013, the eight commissioners shall appoint the remaining six members to ensure geographic diversity and that at least three commissioners come from each of the four existing Travis County Commissioners districts, to the extent feasible with the remaining six open seats."

Still not CISPA, buuuuut

howdandy — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:39:03 GMT

Thanks for this info. I called and wrote my State Senator. I direct a software as a service company in North Texas. Amendment 4 is so ridiculous and broad that I doubt we would be able to continue doing business in this state for very long....

It takes shoe leather

LSadun — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:13:41 GMT

Mark Strama turned a purple district into a blue one with a lot of one-on-one contact. He has appeared at a ridiculous number of public events in his district, always knowing the right thing to say to put people at ease, and has always been effective at motivating others to carry his message, too. (The Campaign Academy was a brilliant idea.)

Whatever their credentials on paper, the winner of the primary will be the person who is best able to shake hands and look people in the eye.

yes yes

ihavetimeforthis — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:48:32 GMT

I created a new account just so that I could tell you, howdandy, that you are my new favorite person on the internet. Your reply is brilliantly hilarious and critical without being rude. Bravo.

No no.

howdandy — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:52:47 GMT

CISPA and SB 1052 have nothing in common. Texas bills aren't that long, and I feel like it only takes a cursory reading to debunk the 4 of the 5 points above.

Requires any Internet provider that serves Texans to hand over private communication and files.

- Sure. If there's a lawfully obtained warrant. Why was that left out of your statement? Is it because it sounds less scary and exciting?

Sets no standard for warrants for such seizures, enabling arbitrary violations of Texans' privacy.

- This is the opposite of truth. All warrants in Texas require a burden of proof that is defined in other, existing, well-established laws. This bill would require a warrant for the seizure of electronic records. None was required before. Is it not better that now, in order to seize electronic records a warrant would be required? A warrant has to be obtained from a judge and presents a way for potential defendants to appropriately respond to any potential evidence collected.

Forces Internet providers to respond within 15-30 days (and sometimes 4-30), giving them almost no time to protect information not targeted.

- Yes. The time limit is ridiculous for electronic records and might cause undue trouble to the organization or person served. Thank goodness the billion dollar industries that would be served these warrants have sufficient legal recourse to correct this issue if SB1052 is passed and and signed by our horrible governor.

Makes it a crime for an officer, director or owner of a company to not comply with the request within the 15-30 day window.

- Yep. Like all warrants and court orders, one has to comply||contest or one gets in trubs with the man.

Opens the door to politically-motivated seizures of online communication.

- Of course it doesn't; unless you believe that obtaining a warrant for spurious and illegal reasons is something that is easy to do in Texas or goes unnoticed when/if it happens. We Texans don't live in a never-ending John Grisham novel of shadowy intrigue and illegitimate legal processes.

I'll mention in passing that HR3523 defined how the federal government can use information voluntarily shared by ISPs. There's not a single mention of warrants in HR3523.

I understood why everyone read the devil into the many versions of CISPA. Federal bills are long and the bulk of HR3523's 18 pages outlined federal accountability for information obtained which makes for boring dystopian fiction. SB1052 is just two or three pages long with the new addenda and reads plainly.

Either you didn't read it, you have rather poor reading comprehension, or you're blatantly lying about SB1052's contents in order to entice and titillate with the hope that no one will actually read the bill but will visit your site.

I found BOR because someone posted a link to this story, urging me to call my district's senator to ensure that this bill dies on the floor. I'm guessing they read your 5 point "summary", assumed for whatever reason you were being honest, and summarily gasped and shared away. I followed the shared link and spent about 30 minutes on the site. You got at least 3 good ad impressions. Good job; but blatant misreads and lying to get you a couple of bucks in ad revenue doesn't make you a journalist. It just makes you another G. Beck.