Tag Archives: U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. House passes bill to penalize websites for sex trafficking US

FILE PHOTO - The U.S. Capitol Building is lit at sunset in Washington, U.S., December 20, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed legislation to make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking, chipping away at a bedrock legal shield for the technology industry.

The bill’s passage marks one of the most concrete actions in recent years from the U.S. Congress to tighten regulation of internet firms, which have drawn heavy scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties over the past year due to an array of concerns regarding the size and influence of their platforms.

The House passed the measure 388-25. It still needs to pass the U.S. Senate, where similar legislation has already gained substantial support, and then be signed by President Donald Trump before it can become law.

Speaker Paul Ryan, in a statement before the vote, said the bill would help “put an end to modern-day slavery here in the United States.”

The White House issued a statement generally supportive of the bill, but said the administration “remains concerned” about certain provisions that it hopes can be resolved in the final legislation.

Several major internet companies, including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc, had been reluctant to support any congressional effort to dent what is known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a decades-old law that protects them from liability for the activities of their users.

But facing political pressure, the internet industry slowly warmed to a proposal that gained traction in the Senate last year, and eventually endorsed it after it gained sizeable bipartisan support.

Republican Senator Rob Portman, a chief architect of the Senate proposal, said in a statement he supported the House’s similar version and called on the Senate to quickly pass it.

The legislation is a result of years of law-enforcement lobbying for a crackdown on the online classified site backpage.com, which is used for sex advertising.

It would make it easier for states and sex-trafficking victims to sue social media networks, advertisers and others that fail to keep exploitative material off their platforms.

Some critics warned that the House measure would weaken Section 230 in a way that would only serve to further help established internet giants, who possess larger resources to police their content, and not adequately address the problem.

“This bill will only prop up the entrenched players who are rapidly losing the public’s trust,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, an original author of Section 230, said. “The failure to understand the technological side effects of this bill – specifically that it will become harder to expose sex-traffickers, while hamstringing innovation – will be something that this Congress will regret.”

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; editing by Sandra Maler and Lisa Shumaker)

House to vote to renew NSA’s internet surveillance program

An illustration picture shows the logo of the U.S. National Security Agency on the display of an iPhone in Berlin, June 7, 2013.

By Dustin Volz

(Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on Thursday on whether to renew the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, which has been the target of privacy advocates who want to limit its impact on Americans.

The vote is the culmination of a yearslong debate in Congress on the proper scope of U.S. intelligence collection, one fueled by the 2013 disclosures of classified surveillance secrets by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The bill would extend the NSA’s spying program for six years with minimal changes. Most lawmakers expect it to become law if it prevails in the House, although it still would require Senate approval and President Donald Trump’s signature.

Trump appeared on Thursday to initially question the merits of the program, contradicting the official White House position and renewing unsubstantiated allegations that the previous administration of Barack Obama improperly surveilled his campaign during the 2016 election.

“This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?” the president said in an early morning post on Twitter.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request to clarify Trump’s tweet but he posted a clarification less than two hours later.

“With that being said, I have personally directed the fix to the unmasking process since taking office and today’s vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land. We need it! Get smart!” Trump tweeted.

Unmasking refers to the largely separate issue of how Americans’ names kept secret in intelligence reports can be revealed.

Asked by a Reuters reporter at a conference in New York about Trump’s tweets, Rob Joyce, the top White House cyber official, said there was no confusion within Oval Office about the value of the surveillance program and that there have been no cases of it being used improperly for political purposes.

Some conservative, libertarian-leaning Republicans and liberal Democrats were attempting to persuade colleagues to include more privacy protections. Those would include requiring a warrant before the NSA or other intelligence agencies could scrutinize communications belonging to Americans whose data is incidentally collected under the program.

The White House, U.S. intelligence agencies and Republican leaders in Congress have said they consider the tool indispensable and in need of little or no revision.

Without congressional action, legal support for Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which authorizes the program, will expire next week, although intelligence officials say it could continue through April.

Section 702 allows the NSA to eavesdrop on vast amounts of digital communications from foreigners living outside the United States through U.S. companies such as Facebook Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google.

The spying program also incidentally scoops up communications of Americans if they communicate with a foreign target living overseas, and can search those messages without a warrant.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Bill Trott)

House speaker optimistic on tax reform prospects this year

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan walks through National Statuary Hall after making a statement at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., June 14, 2017.

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to reassure business leaders on Tuesday that tax reform is on track for this year, despite repeated delays and a string of political distractions from President Donald Trump.

In what is billed as a major speech, House Speaker Paul Ryan will seek to dispel the notion that tax reform is adrift by describing what a U.S. tax code overhaul will look like, according to a source close to Ryan’s office.

The speaker will emphasize the importance of permanent reforms and reject the notion that legislation should do little more than reduce tax rates, the source said. He will underscore the need for international corporate tax reforms in remarks to the National Association of Manufacturers.

Aides said he is not expected to delve into the details of tax proposals.

The Wisconsin Republican delivered a similar optimistic message to lobbyists and campaign donors in Virginia over the weekend, adding that he expected Congress to finalize legislation to dismantle Obamacare by mid-summer, according to a source familiar with the Speaker’s comments.

Originally expected to unveil tax reform legislation in the spring, Republicans are under pressure from business lobbyists to make good on campaign pledges to reform the tax code and pass healthcare legislation.

Lawmakers also need legislative victories to stave off Democratic challenges in next year’s congressional mid-term elections.

“What Ryan needs to do is refocus folks on the rationale for having tax reform, not just the political rationale, but the economic rationale,” said Jeff Kupfer, a former economic adviser to President George W. Bush.

Markets have been anticipating lower taxes. Major stock indexes have hit multiple record highs from Trump’s election to the end of the first quarter, on bets he would improve economic growth by cutting taxes and boosting infrastructure spending.

The tax reform debate has largely moved behind closed doors, where Ryan is trying to hammer out an agreement with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn and Republican chairmen of the two congressional tax committees. The aim is to unveil tax reform legislation in September.

Outside those discussions, lawmakers have begun to talk about legislation that would do little more than cut taxes, with temporary reductions financed by the federal deficit.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Chris Sanders and Jeffrey Benkoe)

North Korea sends rare letter of protest over new U.S. sanctions

FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea sent a rare letter of protest to the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday warning that a new package of tougher sanctions would only spur its development of nuclear weapons, North Korea’s state media reported.

The protest was lodged by the recently revived Foreign Affairs Committee of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, which said the U.S. House of Representatives was “obsessed” with a sense of disapproval and warned it of dire consequences.

“The U.S. House of Representatives should think twice,” the committee said in its letter, a copy of which was published by the KCNA state news agency.

Tension has been high for weeks over North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and fears it will conduct a sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation this month to tighten sanctions by targeting North Korea’s shipping industry and companies that do business it.

The U.S. legislation was intended to cut off supplies of cash that help fund North Korea’s nuclear program, and increase pressure to stop human rights abuses such as the use of slave labor, the bill’s sponsor said.

The North’s committee said it would fail.

“As the U.S. House of Representatives enacts more and more of these reckless hostile laws, the DPRK’s efforts to strengthen nuclear deterrents will gather greater pace, beyond anyone’s imagination,” the committee said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last month, North Korea reconvened the Foreign Affairs Committee, which was abolished in the late 1990s, in what analysts saw as an attempt to improve relations with the outside world amid its deepening isolation.

The committee is chaired by Ri Su Yong, a close aide to leader Kim Jong Un and a career diplomat.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Robert Birsel)

White House expects vote on healthcare bill this week

FILE PHOTO: An emergency sign points to the entrance to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California, U.S.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top White House officials said on Monday they expect the U.S. House of Representatives will vote this week to pass the Republicans’ latest plan to reform the nation’s healthcare system, even as the party’s lawmakers still appeared divided over the measure.

In interviews on CBS News on Monday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn expressed optimism the latest push to unwind former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare program would succeed.

“I think it will happen this week,” Priebus said on CBS “This Morning” television program.

In a separate interview, Cohn said he expected the plan to come to the House floor for a full vote. “We’re convinced we’ve got the votes, and we’re going to keep moving on with our agenda,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump and fellow Republicans campaigned on a pledge to repeal and replace Obama’s health care law, also known as Obamacare, but have so far failed to unite around a plan.

A reworked proposal failed to secure enough support for a vote last week. A group of hard-line Republican conservatives backed it, but more moderate conservatives remained wary.

Republican Representative Charlie Dent, a moderate from Pennsylvania, said on Monday he still had problems with the latest version of the plan and suspected there were not enough votes to pass it now.

“Too many Americans are going to be without coverage,” Dent told MSNBC.

House Freedom Caucus chairman Jim Jordan, in several television interviews on Monday, said he expected there would be enough House Republican votes to pass the bill this week.

“This bill doesn’t get all the way there but it’s a good step and is … the best we can get out of the House right now,” Jordan told CNN.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)

U.S. House panel to take up bill to spur generic drug development

File photo: U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) asks questions of the witnesses during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 24, 2013.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee will take up bipartisan legislation next week to foster generic drug development, the committee’s chairman, Representative Greg Walden, said on Thursday.

“President (Donald) Trump made it clear … he wants competition to lower drug prices, and that is precisely what this measure will help accomplish,” Walden, a Republican from Oregon, said at a health subcommittee hearing.

“Specifically the bill will require FDA (the Food and Drug Administration) to prioritize, expedite and review generic applications of drug products that are currently in shortage, or where there are few manufacturers on the market,” Walden said.

Trump this week met pharmaceutical executives and called on them to cut prices. He said the government was paying “astronomical” prices for medicines in its health programs for older, disabled and poor people.

Walden said recently there had been cases of “bad actors” who “jacked up the price of drugs because there was no competition,” but he did not name names. “We want to make sure that does not happen again,” the congressman said.

“For those in the industry who think it’s okay to corner a market, drive up prices and rip off consumers, know that your days are numbered,” Walden said.

He said the bill would also increase transparency around the backlog of generic drug applications at the FDA, saying there was an “unacceptably high” number.

The bill will be sponsored by Representative Gus Bilirakis, a Republican from Florida, and Representative Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, Walden said. Republicans have the majority in both chambers of Congress.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish)

Most House members sign letter backing Israel at U.N.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 90 percent of the U.S. House of Representatives has signed a letter urging President Barack Obama to use U.S. veto power to block any United Nations resolutions seen as biased against Israel, one of the letter’s lead sponsors said on Friday.

U.S. Representative Nita Lowey said 394 members of the 435-member House signed the letter that was sent to Obama on Thursday.

It was written as the Palestinian Authority renewed its drive to persuade the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in Arab East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The United States vetoed a similar resolution in the Security Council five years ago.

With U.S. efforts to broker a two-state solution in tatters since 2014, France has been lobbying countries to commit to a conference that would get Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations to end their conflict.

The congressional letter backed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but insisted that negotiations between the two sides are the only path to peace, not United Nations action or an international conference.

“The only way you can get there is if the two parties can be brought together and really go over all the issues,” Lowey said in a telephone interview.

Lowey is the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid. Republican Representative Kay Granger, who chairs the subcommittee, also sponsored the letter.

Lowey said she had not yet had a response to the letter, but she hoped administration officials were carefully reading it.

Support for Israel is one of the few issues that has the support of Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Fiona Ortiz)

Supreme Court Asked To Rule on “Choose Life” License Plates

The Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in on the constitutionality of states issuing license plates with the ”Choose Life” slogan.

The Alliance Defending Freedom filed an appeal on Friday with the court on behalf of the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Thom Tills, and the president pro tem of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger.  The appeal comes after a three-judge panel with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the license places were unconstitutional.

The ADF says “state governments have the right to advance messages consistent with their public policies.”  The Supreme Court, the ADF notes, has already affirmed that right in other cases.

The ACLU of North Carolina brought the initial suit against the plates because there were no pro-abortion license plates offered at the same time.

The “Choose Life” plates cost an extra $25, of which $15 goes to a pregnancy care fellowship that helps with pregnancy care centers in the state.  If the ACLU is successful in removing the plates, thousands of women in North Carolina will be denied pregnancy care coverage because the ACLU is doing nothing to replace the funds that will be lost.

Congressman Tells Believers Not To Wait On Political Messiah

Congressman Trey Gowdy, who is heading the House of Representatives’ select committee for the Benghazi terror attack, told a group of believers at Second Baptist Church Houston that they need to stop waiting for a political messiah and place their hope in the true messiah.

“If you want to change culture, don’t wait on the Supreme Court or anyone else,” said the South Carolina congressman. “The real hope in Christ is expressed through the lives of His followers. Changing the hearts and minds in this country is our job.”

Gowdy said that Christians must to step up and speak the truth in a way that is respectful to other people but unwavering in presenting the Gospel truth.

“You don’t insult people into changing their minds,” said Gowdy.

Gowdy said that it’s important for people to hold their elected officials accountable for more than just the votes they cast or actions they take in their office.  He said leaders need to be held accountable for their actions in their private lives because everything we do is a reflection on the Lord and how He is working in our lives.

Gowdy said that Christians need to educate themselves because the answers to all things are in Scripture.

“Are you educated in the teachings of Christ?” Gowdy said. “The answers to all our political questions are in the Bible… But what good does that do unless you know the Bible?”

House Minority Leader Calls Pro-Lifers “Dumb”

If you believe in the sanctity of life, the House minority leader thinks you’re stupid.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi told a Planned Parenthood group that was giving her an award that anyone who was pro-life was “closed-minded”, “oblivious” and “dumb.”

Pelosi was being given the Margaret Sanger Award for “outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.”  Sanger is the woman who founded Planned Parenthood and once said that she had to submit to the dictates of “an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who should never have been born at all.”

Pelosi said she was accepting the award on behalf of her colleagues who are continuing to fight for those who want to end the lives of their babies via abortion.

The gathering also gave a “Global Citizen Award” to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who is very pro-abortion.