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| Friday, November 20, 2009 |
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UPDATE: Health Care & Cyber
Security Act
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Once the markup is completed, the focus will move towards merging the two Senate bills into one, and doing the same with the three versions of the House bill. These two bills will then be scheduled for a vote on the floor of the respective chambers. We will continue to call for amendments on the most problematic portions of the bills.
Meanwhile, we continue to express concern about the Cyber Security Act being advanced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). If enacted, this sweeping proposal would turn over to the federal government nearly complete control of all electronic communication. This would be done under the auspices of national security, but would extend far beyond the scope of monitoring communications connected to a national threat. This proposal would give the President and a bureaucratic czar the right to completely shut down communications for any number of broadly defined reasons.
We recently saw an effort like this in Iran when the Iranian citizens used Twitter to broadcast the real story of the post-election protests despite a media blackout enforced by the government of Iran. If Americans are stripped of the ability to use technology to communicate, our government might very well have the ability to stifle speech just as the Iranian government did. While we are all concerned about national security, we must not stand by while our elected officials use scare tactics to trample our rights and take away our fundamental freedoms.
ACLJ Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow recently discussed this critical issue with Sean Hannity on his radio show. You can listen to that interview here.
Stay tuned to Jay Sekulow Live! for updates on these and other critical issues.
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Posted: 9/21/2009 12:01 AM
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