Tech Target reports that HR 5938 has been sent to the president for signature. This bill was actually written to authorize $4 million a year to pay for the protection of VP Cheney after he leaves office, but it also contains provisions of S 2168 related to cyber-crime:

“The key anti-cybercrime provisions that are included in this legislation will close existing gaps in our criminal law to keep up with the cunning and ingenuity of today’s identity thieves,” Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), sponsor of S. 2168, said in a prepared statement.

The legislation gives identity theft victims the ability to seek restitution in federal court for the loss of time and money spent restoring their credit. It also enables federal prosecution of cybercrime not involving interstate or foreign communication, and eliminates the requirement that damage to a computer exceed $5,000 before charges can be brought for unauthorized access to a computer. Leahy said the bill protects innocent people from “frivolous prosecutions” by clarifying that the elimination of the $5,000 threshold only applies to criminal cases.

In addition, the bill tackles the botnet problem by making it a felony to use spyware or keyloggers to damage 10 or more computers, regardless of the total amount of damage caused.

The legislation also makes it a crime to threaten to steal data from a computer. This provision expands current law, which only allows prosecution of criminals who try to extort companies by threatening to shut down or damage a computer.

This is big news for investigators and forensics. It also is probably big news to the Cheney family. Given the odd juxtaposition, it is hard not to compare how much money is earmarked for fighting cyber-crime in America versus paying for Cheney’s personal safety.

Craig Newmark points out that Americans can actually read the details of the bailout packages:

Want to know what’s in that $700 billion bailout legislation for the mortgage companies? What should be in the legislation? The folks at Sunlight have posted publicmarkup.org both the Administration’s bill and one being offered by Senator Chris Dodd in a way so that you can read and comment on them section by section.

Thanks Craig!

The first paragraph of AP News says it all:

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there’s no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.

This is a completely baseless and counterproductive decision, as the movie FLOW illustrates.

The AP article says the EPA claims to have used a risk calculation that decided Americans do not deserve the cost of cleanup:

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a “meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems.”

In other words, the government does not want to spend its money on cleanup of a toxin that they are primarily responsible for dumping into the water. The EPA is harming national security.

Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: “This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly.”

The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.

The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA’s conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.

Fortunately, states are acting on their own to set a health standard for drinking water that includes a limit on perchlorate. The states do not seem to be as biased towards protecting the Pentagon budget in their calculations.

California uses 6 parts per billion as a level of concern, whereas the US Navy uses 24 parts per billion. The problem with perchlorate is that it travels through water into plants, milk, and people; even nursing babies are at risk:

A chemical pollutant that is commonly found in water supplies could harm nursing babies, even lead to mental impairment in extreme cases.

Perchlorate-an industrial pollutant linked to thyroid ailments-has been found in US drinking water and a survey is currently under way to find out its extent and impact in the UK.

Now it has been discovered that it becomes actively concentrated in breast milk, according to a team at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore.

Today perhaps you can feel lucky that you don’t live in a city like Rialto, California (that has 22 wells contaminated with perclorate and one registering 10,000 ppb) but tomorrow you might be wondering why the EPA does not want to protect you and your family from danger.

The EPA should immediately go after the sources of contamination, public and private, and declare levels above 6 ppm an unacceptable risk to American safety and security. Keep in mind that the cost of cleanup will decrease significantly if the EPA takes a stand on this issue — demand for new cleanup technology will spur innovation.

Interesting to read about Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volker and his early warning about the risks of deregulation. PBS has the story:

Thomas Theobald, then vice chairman of Citicorp, argues that three “outside checks” on corporate misbehavior had emerged since 1933: “a very effective” SEC; knowledgeable investors, and “very sophisticated” rating agencies. Volcker is unconvinced, and expresses his fear that lenders will recklessly lower loan standards in pursuit of lucrative securities offerings and market bad loans to the public.

Oh, that was in 1987.

In August 1987, Alan Greenspan — formerly a director of J.P. Morgan and a proponent of banking deregulation — becomes chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. One reason Greenspan favors greater deregulation is to help U.S. banks compete with big foreign institutions.

It seems to me that if you have to change the rules or remove the referees to win, then maybe you do not really intend to play the game anymore. Imagine basketball with no refs, baseball with no umpire. This is not my idea of the best way to compete. The power-vacuum of deregulation not only allows for unsustainable excess and fraud (cheating on the field) but also spirals downward into a match of sheer aggression and violence. So deregulation leads to far higher operating costs, more permanent failure and decreased quality of service. Who wins from that equation?