Tag Archives: House of Representatives

‘No doubt’ Russia behind hacks on U.S. election system: senior Democrat

Vice Presidential debate in Virginia

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior Democratic lawmaker said Sunday he had “no doubt” that Russia was behind recent hacking attempts targeting state election systems, and urged the Obama administration to publicly blame Moscow for trying to undermine confidence in the Nov. 8 presidential contest.

The remarks from Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, come amid heightened concerns among U.S. and state officials about the security of voting machines and databases, and unsubstantiated allegations from Republican candidate Donald Trump that the election could be “rigged.”

“I have no doubt [this is Russia]. And I don’t think the administration has any doubt,” Schiff said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

Schiff’s call to name and shame the Kremlin came a week after Trump questioned widely held conclusions made privately by the U.S. intelligence community that Russia is responsible for the hacking activity.

“It could be Russia, but it could also be China,” Trump said during a televised debate with Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

On Saturday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said hackers have probed the voting systems of many U.S. states but there is no sign that they have manipulated any voting data.

Schiff said he doubted hackers could falsify vote tallies in a way to affect the election outcome. Officials and experts have said the decentralized and outdated nature of U.S. voting technology makes such hacks more unlikely.

But cyber attacks on voter registration systems could “sow discord” on election day, Schiff said. He further added that leaks of doctored emails would be difficult to disprove and could “be election altering.”

The National Security Agency, FBI and DHS all concluded weeks ago that Russian intelligence agencies conducted, directed or coordinated all the major cyberattacks on U.S. political organizations, including the Democratic National Committee, and individuals, a U.S. official who is participating in the investigations said on Sunday.

However, the official said, White House officials have resisted naming the Russians publicly because doing so could result in escalating cyberattacks, and because it is considered impossible to offer public, unclassified proof of the allegation.

Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate intelligence committee, said last month they had concluded Russian intelligence agencies were “making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election.”

(Reporting by Dustin Volz and John Walcott; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

U.S. House votes to allow Sept. 11 families to sue Saudi Arabia

Firefighter walks amid the 9/11 rubble

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Friday that would allow the families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia’s government for damages, despite the White House’s threat to veto the measure.

The U.S. Senate in May unanimously passed the “Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act,” known as JASTA. The bill’s passage in the House by voice vote, two days before the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed about 3,000 people, was greeted with cheers and applause in the chamber.

“We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes, denying justice to the victims of terrorism,” said Republican Representative Bob Goodlatte, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Fifteen of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers who crashed airliners in New York, outside Washington and in Pennsylvania were Saudi nationals. The Saudi government, which strongly denies responsibility, has lobbied against the bill.

Opponents of the measure said it could strain relations with Saudi Arabia and lead to retaliatory laws that would allow foreign nationals to sue Americans for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks.

The White House on Friday reiterated that President Barack Obama would veto the bill. [nW1N12802E]

If Obama carries out that threat and the required two-thirds of both the Republican-majority House and Senate still support the bill, it would be the first time since Obama’s presidency began in 2009 that Congress had overridden a veto.

The House passed the measure by voice vote, without objections or recorded individual votes. That could make it easier for Obama’s fellow Democrats to uphold his veto later without officially changing their positions.

JASTA would remove sovereign immunity, preventing lawsuits against governments, for countries found to be involved in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. It also would allow survivors, and relatives of those killed in them to seek damages from other countries.

In this case, it would allow suits to proceed in federal court in New York as lawyers try to prove that the Saudis were involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Backers say passage is long overdue. They argue that if Saudi Arabia, or any other government, is innocent of involvement in attacks, they have nothing to fear from the legislation.

A member of the French parliament, Pierre Lellouche, said he would consider such legislation in France, and would anticipate it elsewhere, if the final version of JASTA does not include waivers for countries that are U.S. allies and actively involved in fighting terrorism.

“It may trigger similar acts all over the place, and then you enter into a ‘state of jungle’ where everybody sues everybody,” Lellouche, who runs a parliamentary committee on international law, told reporters on a conference call on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner and Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Grant McCool and Will Dunham)

House Speaker Ryan: All options open on Zika funding

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday said a range of options to provide funds to fight Zika, adding that lawmakers take the threat seriously but have not yet decided the best way to allocate resources to prevent and combat the deadly virus.

“We’re looking at all different options,” adding that the White House has begun providing congressional staff with answers to questions over President Barack Obama’s funding request. “The administration has a bit of a track record of over-requesting what they need.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey)

House Overwhelmingly Votes to Tighten Restrictions on Visa-Free Travel

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted Tuesday to impose new restrictions on travel to the United States, which bill proponents said is designed to prevent terrorists from lawfully entering the country.

The bill, approved by a 407-19 margin, is geared to reform the United States’ Visa Waiver Program, which allows eligible citizens from 38 participating countries to travel to the country for 90 or fewer days without first getting a visa from a United States embassy or consulate.

The list of countries includes Belgium and France, according to the State Department. Those countries were the home of many of the terrorists who executed the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. The legislation is designed to close a loophole that, theoretically, could have allowed any one of those Belgian or French terrorists from entering the United States through the Visa Waiver Program.

The Associated Press reported about 20 million travelers visit America through the program every year. There are some security measures in place, but this bill aims to improve them.

The changes would now require the 38 participating countries to “continually share terrorism and foreign traveler data with the United States,” according to a news release from lawmakers.

“It will also disqualify anyone who has traveled to Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran within the past five years from participating in the program,” Rep. Candice Miller (R-Michigan), the lawmaker who introduced the bill, said on the House floor. “In an abundance of caution, we will now require those individuals to apply for a visa and go through the formal visa screening process.”

In the week before the vote, the House’s Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Michael McCaul (R-Texas), said about 5,000 of the 30,000 foreign fighters currently in Iraq and Syria have Western passports that could have been used to exploit the Visa Waiver Program loophole.

Other proposed changes to the program are geared toward reducing passport fraud.

They include requiring the participating countries to report lost or stolen passports within 24 hours, and screen travelers against INTERPOL records. The changes would also require U.S.-bound travelers to hold chip-enabled “e-passports” like those issued by the United States.

The bill would allow Homeland Security officials to suspend a country’s visa waiver privileges if they don’t comply with the proposed rules, like not sharing information about potential threats. They could also block any country from the program if the country is later determined to be a “high-risk” area in security reviews that would be conducted annually.

“We need to be certain that participating countries are giving us all the information we need from either their own terror watch lists or travel manifests and that the information protocols are being shared,” Miller said on the House floor. “As we know, sometimes it’s not until after the fact that some of the participating countries actually provide us names of individuals who they knew were a terror threat. That is unacceptable.”

Though it was approved by the House, the bill still needs Senate approval and must be signed by the president before it becomes a law. Lawmakers have introduced a similar bill in the Senate.

Miller also called for a “complete, comprehensive review of all our visa programs,” including the fiancee-visa that allowed one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, California, mass shootings to lawfully enter the country. Tashfeen Malik was a Pakistani native living in Saudi Arabia when she met Syed Rizwan Farook, a United States citizen, reportedly on an online dating website.

Last week, the couple killed 14 people and injured 21 more during a party for Farook’s coworkers. The mass shooting has been called an act of terrorism by President Barack Obama, and authorities say they have evidence that the couple had been radicalized for a period of time.

The investigation into the shootings continued on Wednesday.

House Passes Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

The House of Representatives has passed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act that would ban most abortions after the 20th week of gestation.

The bill, H.R. 36, passed 242-184.  The bill’s vote came on the second anniversary of the conviction of Philadelphia late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell.

The bill bans abortions after 5 months of pregnancy with exceptions for rape and incest if the woman seeks counseling 48 hours prior to having the abortion.  The counseling portion of the bill was added after Republican women in the House objected to the bill’s previous requirement the woman report rape or incest to police.

The bill initially was going to be voted on January 22nd, the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  Many pro-life groups were upset that the House postponed the vote because of issues with some Republican women.

Several representatives cited Gosnell’s clinic in their statements supporting the bill.

“It seems that some members of this body want to regulate things like light bulbs and rainwater and farm dust, but leave women helpless before the doctor Gosnells of the world,” said Rep. Joseph Pitts, R-Pa.

“Late term abortionists are driven by profit undeterred by the painful death of countless innocent lives. We must protect these women and children by passing the bill.”

Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., said that a November 2014 poll found that 60 percent of Americans support banning abortion after 20 weeks.