• U.S. tax code has minimal effect on CO2, other greenhouse gas emissions

    Current federal tax provisions have minimal net effect on greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report from the National Research Council. The report found that several existing tax subsidies have unexpected effects, and others yield little reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue loss.

  • Following DOMA decision, DHS will offer gay couples same benefits as straight couples

    DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said that following the Supreme Court’s decision to declare the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, her department will work to give benefits to same-sex legally married couples.

  • DHS no longer conducts regular background checks of immigration applicants

    DHS is no longer conducting ordinary background checks because of the increase in the volume of amnesty applications which followed President Obama’s executive order, which took effect on 15 August last year. Skeptical lawmakers may wonder whether DHS can handle the millions of applications which will follow the immigration bill if it is passed, if the department cannot handle the hundreds of thousands which followed the executive order. 

  • Registration opens for NIST Cybersecurity Framework Workshop

    Executive Order 13636, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity, gave NIST the responsibility to work with industry to develop a voluntary “framework” — incorporating existing standards, guidelines, and best practices — that institutions could use to reduce the risk of cyber attacks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has opened registration for its Third Cybersecurity Framework Workshop, to be held 10-12 July 2013, in San Diego, California.

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  • DHS ordered to release names of immigrant criminals allowed to stay in U.S.

    A federal judge has ordered DHS to release the names of thousands of criminal immigrants who were allowed to stay in the United States because their home countries refused to take them back. Two years ago, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a list of more than 6,800 criminals, including 201 who were convicted of murder and other serious offenses, but the agency refused to provide names, saying that doing so would be a violation of the immigrants’ privacy. A judge ruled that the public interest in knowing how ICE handles aliens convicted of crimes is more important than the privacy concerns of the immigrants. The list of released criminal aliens now contains more than 8,500 names.

  • GOP lawmakers want stronger border security provisions in immigration bill

    A border security amendment to the immigration reform bill, offered by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), was defeated by a 57-43 vote last Thursday. Republican senators who supported Grassley’s amendment said they were concerned about a repeat of the 1986 scenario: the Reagan administration pushed through Congress an amnesty for illegal immigrants then residing in the United States, but without bolstering security along the U.S.-Mexico border, prompting millions of illegal immigrants to cross the border in the following decades. Several GOP lawmakers are offering their own border security amendments to the immigration overhaul bill.

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  • Environmental group sues State Department for Keystone XL-related files

    The Sierra Club has announced it is suing the State Department for files related to an environmental review draft of the Keystone XL pipeline. The group tried to gain access to the files through the Freedom of Information Act, but the request was denied, so the group filed the suit on Monday in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California.

  • Second NSA domestic surveillance scheme revealed: data mining from nine U.S. ISPs

    A day after it was revealed that the NSA was collecting communication information on millions of Verizon’s U.S. customers, another NSA domestic surveillance scheme was exposed: the NSA and the FBI have been tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet service providers for the purpose of harvesting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs. The information collected allowed intelligence analysts to track an individual’s movements and contacts over time.

  • Divided Supreme Court allows collection of DNA samples from suspects upon arrest

    The Supreme Court on Monday, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that law enforcement is now allowed to take samples of DNA from people who have been arrested on suspicion of committing a serious crime.“Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee’s DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,”Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

  • U.S. unlikely to meet its biofuel goals

    The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) mandates that by 2022 the United States derive fifteen billion gallons per year of ethanol from corn to blend with conventional motor fuels. A new study says that if the climate continues to evolve as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United States stands little to no chance of satisfying its biofuel goals.

  • Government-developed standards not an effective cybersecurity approach: analyst

    DHS said the department has “recently learned of a vulnerability that existed in the software used by a DHS vendor to process personnel security investigations.” analyst says that it is bad enough that hackers gained access to the personal information of thousands, but what is even more worrisome is the fact that DHS, with it spotty cyber security record, has been placed in charge of regulating the cybersecurity efforts of critical infrastructure industries.

  • Administration more actively to support expansion of fracking

    The Obama administration is leaning toward offering more active support for the expansion hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, despite the opposition of environmental groups.

  • Senate panel considering, and voting on, nearly 300 amendments to immigration bill

    The Senate Judiciary Committee is considering, and voting on, each of the nearly 300 amendments to the immigration overhaul bill. An amendment offered by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), which would require DHS to transfer all student visa information to border patrol agents at all 329 ports of entry into the United States, was approved unanimously.

  • Cybersecurity framework for critical infrastructure: analysis of initial comments

    On 12 February 2013 President Obama issued the “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity” executive order, which called for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to work with industry to develop a voluntary framework to reduce cybersecurity risks to the nation’s critical infrastructure, which includes power, water, communication, and other critical systems.

  • State agency imposes heavy fine on PG&E for San Bruno blast

    The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) two weeks ago  wrapped up its investigation of a 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, and recommended  that Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) pay $2.25 billion for its negligence, which led to the blast.