We are getting used to being bombarded every day with news like "unexpectedly new homes sales drop," "unexpectedly unemployment claims rise," "unexpectedly consumer confidence takes a sharp drop," etc. I wrote about this a few weeks back and opined that only idiots would not have expected those things to happen. I will tell you what else you can expect happening unexpectedly in the near future: a share ware software reform will be undertaken by the Congress.
Why now? It is quite simple. The Recording Industry Association of America has been trying for years to make the Congress pass the law restricting or making illegal the peer-to-peer file sharing which was digging into their profits. To no avail. That is until now. Last week a junior staff member of the Congress ethics committee (the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct) saved onto his home hard drive details of the investigation against members of the defence appropriations committee. He had a file-sharing software on his home computer, and did not realize that this makes those documents available for others to download. As a result, this secret document was leaked to the press.
Basically, it is not an earth shattering document for anybody who expects the "unexpected." It just shows that the ethics committee is investigating members of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee who have steered earmarks to clients of the lobbying firm which paid tens of thousands of dollars to those politicians' election campaigns. The exact list of names and donation amounts can be found here.
Same old, same old. Corrupted politicians accept bribes (and lobbying is a legalized form of bribing, don't kid yourselves) in exchange for contracts delivered to the donors. Defense contractors are usually the biggest beneficiaries, so some politicians even forgo their more prominent ranks on other subcommittees in order to get on the defence subcommittee where the money is, you know.
The only piece of news is really that this share ware software now touched too close to home, and that is why I anticipate the Congress to pass some legislation banning it pretty soon.
Why now? It is quite simple. The Recording Industry Association of America has been trying for years to make the Congress pass the law restricting or making illegal the peer-to-peer file sharing which was digging into their profits. To no avail. That is until now. Last week a junior staff member of the Congress ethics committee (the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct) saved onto his home hard drive details of the investigation against members of the defence appropriations committee. He had a file-sharing software on his home computer, and did not realize that this makes those documents available for others to download. As a result, this secret document was leaked to the press.
Basically, it is not an earth shattering document for anybody who expects the "unexpected." It just shows that the ethics committee is investigating members of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee who have steered earmarks to clients of the lobbying firm which paid tens of thousands of dollars to those politicians' election campaigns. The exact list of names and donation amounts can be found here.
Same old, same old. Corrupted politicians accept bribes (and lobbying is a legalized form of bribing, don't kid yourselves) in exchange for contracts delivered to the donors. Defense contractors are usually the biggest beneficiaries, so some politicians even forgo their more prominent ranks on other subcommittees in order to get on the defence subcommittee where the money is, you know.
The only piece of news is really that this share ware software now touched too close to home, and that is why I anticipate the Congress to pass some legislation banning it pretty soon.
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