An August 2012 Gallup poll showed that 18.2 percent of Americans lacked sufficient money for needed food at least once over the previous year. To make matters worse, the worst drought in half a century impacted 80 percent of agricultural lands in the country, increasing food prices. Despite this, in 2012, Congress considered cutting support for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)— the official name of its food stamp program—as part of the 2013 Farm Bill.
Tag Archives: Senate
U.S. House of Representatives Shamefully Passes CISPA; Internet Freedom Advocates Prepare for a Battle in the Senate
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| CISPA – The solution is the problem (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey) |
By Dave Maass and Mark M. Jaycox
Today, Internet freedom advocates everywhere turned their eyes to the U.S. House of Representatives as that legislative body considered the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.
For the second year in a row, the House voted to approve CISPA, a bill that would allow companies to bypass all existing privacy law to spy on communications and pass sensitive user data to the government. EFF condemns the vote in the House and vows to continue the fight in the Senate.
“CISPA is a poorly drafted bill that would provide a gaping exception to bedrock privacy law,” EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl said. “While we all agree that our nation needs to address pressing Internet security issues, this bill sacrifices online privacy while failing to take common-sense steps to improve security.”
The legislation passed 288-127, despite a veto threat from Pres. Barack Obama, who expressed serious concerns about the danger CISPA poses to civil liberties.
“This bill undermines the privacy of millions of Internet users,” said Rainey Reitman, EFF Activism Director. “Hundreds of thousands of Internet users opposed this bill, joining the White House and Internet security experts in voicing concerns about the civil liberties ramifications of CISPA. We’re committed to taking this fight to the Senate and fighting to ensure no law which would be so detrimental to online privacy is passed on our watch.”
EFF extends its deep gratitude to the many organization that have worked with us on this campaign and the tens of thousand of EFF members who helped us by contacting Congress to oppose CISPA. We look forward to continuing to fight by your side in defense of civil liberties as CISPA moves to the Senate.
Re-Published from eff.org under the Creative Commons license.
Bastard Bankers JP Morgan Chase Face Scrutiny Over Crooked Trading Practices #OTB
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| From left, former JPMorgan Chase executives Ina Drew and Peter Weiland, and the company’s Acting Chief Risk Officer, Ashley Bacon, testify before Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, Washington, March 15, 2013. |
A new U.S. Senate report is sharply condemning the country’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase, for its risky trading practices and lack of controls that resulted in a $6 billion trading loss last year.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Senate panel investigating the bank’s actions, summarized the findings of the 300-page report at a hearing Friday. The bank lost the money in its London office while making trades on securities known as derivatives, financial instruments that get their value from other assets.
“It exposes a derivative trading culture at JPMorgan that piled on risk, that hid losses, that disregarded risk limits, that manipulated risk models, that dodged oversight, and that misinformed the public,” Levin said.
The legislator also said the scope of the bank’s deceptions in hiding losses on the complex trades would make it difficult for Americans to have confidence in big banks.
“It is difficult to imagine how the American people can trust major Wall Street banks to prudently manage derivatives’ risks when bank personnel can readily game or ignore the risk controls that are meant to prevent financial disaster in taxpayer bailouts,” he said.
The Senate panel questioned key JPMorgan executives, including Ina Drew, the official who had overseen the trading office where the loss occurred. Drew worked at JPMorgan for 30 years but quit last year after the loss was disclosed. She told the lawmakers that her subordinates had misled her.
“Some members of the London team failed to value positions properly and in good faith and minimized purported and projected losses, and hid from me important information regarding the true risk of the book,” she said.
JPMorgan’s highly acclaimed chief executive, Jamie Dimon, at first called reports of the trading losses a “tempest in a teapot.”
But several officials were ousted in the aftermath of the $6 billion loss, and the company on Thursday said it has “repeatedly acknowledged mistakes.” The bank said its senior management “acted in good faith and never had any intent to mislead anyone.”
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