Texas House Passes Three Amendments to CISPA-Like Bill

by: Ben Sherman

Wed May 22, 2013 at 00:00 PM CDT

On Tuesday, the Texas House added three amendments to the CISPA-like bill flying through the Legislature. Clearly, all the attention now directed at this terrible bill is spurring action by state lawmakers. But the amendments completely fail to address the bill's serious privacy violations and some make the bill even worse.

Amendment 2

This amendment changes the target of government seizures from "an electronic communications service" to a "remote computing service". All this does is make it more clear that websites not based in Texas are going to be forced to comply with this bill.

The amendment also appears to remove the limit on how far back the state could seize personal records. The bill previously only applied to electronic communication that was less than 180 days old (so it prevented really old fishing expeditions). Under this version of the bill, it appears the government could seize years - or even the totality - of a person's online communication. This is a terrible change.

The amendment also made an important change by removing the ability of a "Designated law enforcement office or agency" to collect the data, leaving it to authorized peace officers. But this doesn't improve the bill very much - authorized peace officers are state agents who also should not be empowered with these broad abilities to seize private communications. It removes the ability for some political hack in a specific office or agency to file a request for electronic information - which is a good thing - but doesn't address the glaring privacy violations in this bill.

Read about the rest of the amendments below the jump.

What Will Happen if Texas CISPA-Like Bill Passes?

by: Ben Sherman

Mon May 20, 2013 at 03:10 PM CDT

The Texas CISPA-like bill, SB 1052 - is being debated today and may very well pass the Texas Legislature.

The Texas CISPA bill could soon affect the ability of Texas users to access specific websites -- and every website and Internet provider in the country that serves data to Texans will be forced to comply with the law. Call Governor Rick Perry @ 512-463-1782 and tell him to veto the bill if it makes it to his desk.

Supporters of the legislation have shortsightedly attempted to circumvent the national CISPA law by empowering their own law enforcement agents to use search warrants to seize any electronic data/communications "regardless of whether the customer data, contents of communications, or other information is held at a location in this state or at a location in another state." That is - from any websites or Internet service providers "under a contract or a terms of service agreement with a resident of this state." This is extremely broad and encompasses the endless copyright claims all across the Internet that CISPA targeted.

That means that if you are a company in Iowa, or California, or New York, and you have Texas users who visit your site or have accounts, you could be required to turn over their user data, communications with other users, and any other information about the user that you may be storing - and you could be forced to turn it over in as little as 4 days.

The bill states that the maximum amount of time that a site or Internet service provider can delay turning over records is between 15 and 30 days, depending on the court order. The bill also criminalizes any delay by a website or service provider, and lets the local jurisdiction decide whether to file contempt of court charges against a director/owner of a website or service provider who fails to comply within the short window.

What are websites and Internet service providers going to do, in order to prevent themselves from being at the whim of every court and law enforcement agent in Texas? One simple solution: Texans could be blocked from websites that don't want to comply with an extremely broad definition of "electronic communications".

Read more below the jump.

Deadly Texas Tornadoes Kill Six, Injure Dozens, Displace Hundreds

by: Ben Sherman

Mon May 20, 2013 at 08:00 AM CDT

On Wednesday night, as many as 12 tornadoes hit around north Texas' Granbury, killing six people and destroying nearly one hundred houses. Dozens were injured and 250 were displaced in Granbury. Seven people remain unaccounted for.

Hood County Sherrif's Lt. Kathy Jiveden said officers "are going house to house" looking for residents trapped under rubble, injured or dead near Lake Granbury.

"We have never seen a community catastrophe with as many injuries as we did through last night," Kyle McCombs, chief of staff at Lake Granbury Medical Center, told USA Today.

The tornadoes also impacted other cities in the area. In Cleburne, 25 miles southeast of Granbury, Mayor Scott Cain declared a disaster citing "wide damage, some injuries and loss of property." Millsap and Decatur were also hit.

The United States hasn't seen such deadly tornadoes since six people were killed in Woodward, OK in April 2012.

Watch interviews with Texans affected by the tornadoes below the jump.

Texas CISPA Bill Scheduled for Monday Vote

by: Ben Sherman

Sun May 19, 2013 at 02:00 PM CDT

Read more about the contents of the bill here.

The Texas CISPA bill, approved unanimously by the House last week, may be passed by the Legislature within 24 hours. It has been scheduled for a vote on Monday.

The bill, now slightly altered SB 1052 in the Senate, does the following:

• Requires any Internet provider that serves Texans to hand over private communication and files.
• Sets no standard for warrants for such seizures, enabling arbitrary violations of Texans' privacy.
• Forces Internet providers to respond within 15-30 days (and sometimes 4-30), giving them almost no time to protect information not targeted.
• 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.
• Opens the door to politically-motivated seizures of online communication.

Read more below the jump.

Republican Judge Forces Lesbian Texan Out of Her Home For Helping Raise KIds

by: Ben Sherman

Sun May 19, 2013 at 01:00 PM CDT

Judge John Roach, 296th Judicial District Court

This month in McKinney, just outside of Dallas, Republican judge John Roach kicked Page Price, a lesbian, out of her home. Why? Because she was helping raise her partner's two children. As of May 7th, Price has 30 days to evacuate her home.

This sick, anti-family judge is involved at all because Price's partner, Carolyn Compton, is going through a divorce. Compton's husband rarely sees the children and was once charged with stalking Carolyn Compton, though he plead the charge down to a misdemeanor. Roach inserted a "morality clause" into Compton's divorce papers which forbids her from having anyone she is not related to "by blood or marriage" in her home past 9:00 p.m. if the children are present. The aptly named Roach wrote that he didn't approve of Compton's "lifestyle". Her lifestyle of living with the person she loves and raising two kids.

"Our children are all happy and well adjusted. By his enforcement, being that we cannot marry in this state, I have been ordered to move out of my home," Price wrote on Facebook.

Read more below the jump.

Big Tobacco Close to Snuffing Out Small Tobacco in Texas

by: Ben Sherman

Sat May 18, 2013 at 01:30 PM CDT

The Texas Senate will vote next week on a bill that would cripple small tobacco companies and violate our state constitution. Texans can expect to see no benefit at all if the bill passes.

In 1998, Texas won a lawsuit against big tobacco companies that manipulated nicotine content, lied about their knowledge of tobacco's effects, and marketed to children. Texas instituted penalty fees on those companies' cigarettes to compensate both the health care costs incurred by the state and the companies' lies.

Since August, three of the biggest tobacco companies - Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Lorillard Tobacco Company - have been pushing the Legislature to pass HB 3536, which would force small tobacco companies to pay the same penalty fees. They've hired a large and well-connected lobbying team to make their case at the Capitol, and that team has been successful since Day One. The bill had 14 cosponsors in the House, including three Democrats (Sylvester Turner, Donna Howard and Eddie Lucio III). The bill passed the House easily on May 7th.

Remember that the small tobacco companies already pay the state sales tax. The big tobacco companies are trying to get them to pay their penalty fees for lying to the state and deceiving consumers. As former Texas Supreme Court Justice Craig Enoch noted in a memorandum on the bill bill, such a move would violate the Equal and Uniform Clause of the Texas Constitution that requires reasons other than nature of the business to impose different taxes on the same kind of business. The Texas Tobacco Settlement clearly meets the "other" reason requirement. Enoch testified in August: "Because a statute that would only tax tobacco manufacturers that were not parties to the Texas Tobacco Settlement (while exempting those that were part of the settlement) has no reasonable basis in the nature of the business and does not apply equally across all members of the class of tobacco manufacturers, it must be rejected as unconstitutional."

Read more below the jump.

Texas House Decides to Audit Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund

by: Ben Sherman

Sat May 18, 2013 at 00:00 PM CDT

Rick Perry's Texas Enterprise Fund has granted $485 million in grants to private companies, allegedly to create jobs in Texas. Many of those companies are owned by the governor's largest donors. Since the creation of the fund ten years ago, Perry has collected $2 million in campaign donations from its recipients. It is a slush fund and crony capitalism at its worst.

On Friday, using a simple voice vote, the Texas House decided to audit the fund. The report is due no later than January 2015. But though the Senate approved an earlier version of the bill, the audit is not yet official.

"The measure must pass a final, procedural House vote. It then heads to conference committee to reconcile the latest version with what the Senate previously approved," the Associated Press explains.

Godspeed.

CALL TODAY: Terrible Bill to End Texans' Internet Privacy One Step Away from Rick Perry's Desk

by: Ben Sherman

Fri May 17, 2013 at 11:08 AM CDT

After passing out of the Criminal Justice Committee yesterday, House Bill 2268 is now up for a full vote in the Senate. The bill will allow the government to force Internet providers to hand over Texans' online communications without good cause and within a very short window of time that will put each Texan's private communications in jeopardy. If this bill becomes law, any investigation that can be brought into the Texas jurisdiction would have all the tools of CISPA, in which any private online activity can be easily seized by the government, at its disposal. That is terrible news not only for Texans but for all Americans.

If we don't speak up now, this bill is very likely to become law. But if we show that Texans are paying attention and oppose the bill, we can stop it.

Please call our State Senators and Rick Perry today and tell them to protect Texans' private information by opposing this intrusive law. This easy phone bank tool gives you all the numbers you need and lets you record their responses.

CISPA-Like Bill Moving Quickly Through Texas Legislature

by: Ben Sherman

Thu May 16, 2013 at 01:00 PM CDT

UPDATE: The Senate will vote on its version of the bill, SB 1052, on Monday.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) was a U.S. Congress bill that would, as the ACLU described it, "create a loophole in all existing privacy laws, allowing companies to share Internet users' data with the National Security Agency, part of the Department of Defense, and the biggest spy agency in the world - without any legal oversight." Fortunately, it was defeated a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, a similar bill passed the Texas House last week and is moving fast through the Senate. House Bill 2268 is designed to make sure Texas law enforcement can seize Texans' electronic information held on servers outside of Texas. The bill requires any Internet provider to people in Texas (that is - just about the entire Internet) to respond to search warrants for online communications in 4-30 days. That is an extremely narrow window which makes it difficult for  Internet providers to keep users' other information private.

Read more below the jump.

Would Ted Cruz Birther Himself?

by: Ben Sherman

Wed May 15, 2013 at 01:00 PM CDT

The answer is no. But if the Canada-born Cruz runs for president, as he appears likely to do, he'll be a big ol' hypocrite.

You see, Ted Cruz is a constitutional originalist - a person who thinks the Constitution was set in stone in 1787 and none of it is open to interpretation. On the question of eligibility to be president, the Constitution reads: "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Clearly, there are many ways to interpret "natural born". Temple University law professor and expert on nationality law recently explained: "It's a question of how our understandings have evolved over time...[recent examples] all pretty clearly establish that the American people are on board with somebody who was born outside of the United States, but who had citizenship at birth." Recent examples of popular interpretation, that is.

But Ted Cruz isn't a fan of constitutional interpretation.

Read more below the jump.