The nitty-gritty of the fiscal year 2010 spending process is getting under way. By the beginning of the new fiscal year October 1st, Congress is supposed to pass twelve appropriations bills, spending the money in the U.S. treasury on all the operations of the government for the year.
Last week, the House passed the H.R. [...]
The House today passed H.R. 549, The National Bombing Prevention Act, which would establish the Office for Bombing Prevention in the Department of Homeland Security.
You mean – they didn’t already have one? I hope that there are sub-bureaus for suicide-bombing prevention, truck-bombing prevention, car-bombing prevention, shoe-bombing prevention, etc.
Actually, that wry comment raises an important [...]
H.R. 645, The National Emergency Centers Establishment Act
The drama of the financial services bailout, coming right at the end of the congressional session and the beginning of the new fiscal year, was very distracting. So distracting that it was easy to miss the partial/temporary spending bill that Congress hurriedly passed.
The bill (now law) is Public Law 110-329, the Consolidated Security, Disaster [...]
The mighty power of the WashingtonWatch.com blog demonstrates itself again! I posted here at 5:37 p.m. on August 5th about searching laptops at the borders and the bill to require reasonable suspicion for doing so.
Undoubtedly in direct response to my raising the issue, the Department of Homeland Security’s Deputy Commissioner for U.S. Customs and [...]
Though I don’t know yet where visitors are coming from, a lot of traffic has come today to a new bill that would lay down rules for searches of laptops and electronic devices at the U.S. borders. And judging by the current vote, a lot of them like it. Here’s some background (with [...]