Here’s even more of this bullshit! :
o $1m for the World Meteorological Organization
o $218m for Promoting Democracy Development in Europe (yep..the birthplace of democracy needs promoting)
o $25m for International Religious Freedom
o $10m for disadvantaged Egyptian Students— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
We don’t have money to spend on our own school systems, but don’t worry Egypt, we got you covered!
page 550:
$9 billion for Govt Services Admin that oversees federal properties
Fed government spends $1.7 billion a year to maintain 770,000 empty buildings while continuing to buy new properties.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 23, 2018
You want to know real waste this should give people reading this a taste.
The icing on the cake, Border Security Funding!!!
Page 376 of terrible, rotten, no-good budget busting bill:
I found it! I found it! Border security, what President Trump wanted!
no . . .wait a minute section says Defense can spend what funds it determines to enhance the border security of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 22, 2018
Page 376 of terrible, rotten, no-good budget busting bill:
I found it! I found it! Border security, what President Trump wanted!
no . . .wait a minute section says Defense can spend what funds it determines to enhance the border security of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia
- The Senate approved a $1.3 trillion ‘omnibus’ spending bill early Friday morning, avoiding a potential government shutdown
- President Trump named John Bolton – a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and a Fox News contributor – to replace H.R. McMaster as national security adviser; Democrats are outraged
- Nearly 1 million worldwide could participate in ‘March for Our Lives’ gun control events this Saturday
- Wall Street will be closely watched after the Dow dipped 724 points Thursday as Trump announced the U.S. would slap tariffs on China
- Court documents obtained by Fox News give a preview of the deposition facing the ex-British spy who put together the much-discredited Trump-Russia dossier
US Congress Passed the CLOUD Act, Ignoring Most Privacy and Human Rights Concerns
Today, with a vote of 256-167, the House of Representatives passed an omnibus spending bill (H.R. 1625) that was required to prevent another government shutdown. Tucked into the very back of that bill was the CLOUD Act, which would enable the U.S. government to obtain communications data regardless of whether it is held inside or outside of the United States. The CLOUD Act would also create an exception to the Stored Communications Act (SCA) to allow qualifying foreign governments to enter into an executive agreement to bypass the human rights protective Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) process when seeking data in criminal investigations and to seek data directly from U.S. technology companies.
Fails to require prior judicial review of foreign governments’ surveillance orders despite new language that was added;
Permits foreign government to ask companies to engage in real time intercepts (wiretaps) of their users’ communications under standards that fall below those required of the U.S. government under the Wiretap Act;
Does not define “serious crimes” in specifying what crimes foreign governments may use the MLAT bypass process to investigate;
Provides inadequate protection for Americans’ privacy if their data have been incidentally collected by a foreign government;
Potentially creates a new backdoor search loophole by allowing foreign governments to share Americans’ incidentally collected data back to the U.S. government, and with few limits as to how the U.S. government can access and use those data;
Fails to include an update to the SCA to require the government to obtain a probable cause warrant before demanding the contents of communications that are over 180 days old, as similar bills like the LEADS Act and ICPA did; and
Fails to prevent foreign countries from attempting to demand — outside of this new process — that U.S. companies create encryption backdoors, and it does nothing to prohibit foreign governments that are party to these agreements from imposing data localization mandates on U.S. companies.