The Senate overwhelmingly approved good government ethics legislation February 2, 2012, that would ensure members of Congress and their staffs are held to the same insider-trading standards as the rest of America. The measure was approved 96-3, after votes on 17 amendments.
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., Ranking Member Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Senators Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and cott Brown, R-Mass., co-sponsored the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, S. 2038, to eliminate any ambiguities in the law that governs insider trading and to explicity bar members of Congress and their staff from profiting from information they obtain on the job that ais not publicly available. “With this vote, the Senate has established that members of Congress and their staffs have a duty of trust to the American people that explicitly bars them from insider trading,” said Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman.
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Senators Lieberman, Collins, andCarper hope to pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislation in 2012 to protect the government's cyber networks and systems as well as those of the most critical infrastructure - our financial system, telecommunications networks, energy delivery, for example. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has a long history working on cyber related issues and has been working specifically to close security gaps for the past two years. Earlier this year, Senators Lieberman, Collins, and Carper introduced The Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act, S.413, to protect the cyber systems and networks. After negotiating with a number of other committees with relevant jurisdiction, a compromise was reached. Majority Leader Reid said the legislation will be debated on the Senate floor early in 2012.
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The Senate and House Homeland Security Committees held a hearing on December 7 to examine the threat of violent Islamist extremism (VIE) specifically against members of the military. More members of the military have been killed by VIE than any other group. Witnesses were: Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Stockton...
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The Committee will be working to enact postal reform legislation in 2012 to ensure the future of the U.S. Postal Service for millions of Americans. Senators Lieberman, Carper, and Collins introduced the 21st Century Postal Act, S.1789, last year to give the USPS the flexibility it needs to maintain financial viability. Approved by the Committee on 11/09/2011, the bill would enable USPS to save billions of dollars so it can remain the great national asset it has been for centuries. Without the 21st Postal Service Act, USPS finances will reach the breaking point in August.
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Senators Lieberman and McCain authored the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission to determine how our defenses failed us leading up to September 11, 2001, and to ensure a catastrophe of that magnitude never happens again. When the Commission issued its report and recommendations in 2004, the Committee worked quickly to shepherd through Congress in just three months legislation to implement most of the recommendations. In 2007, the Committee pushed through a second bill implementing the remaining recommendations. Since then, the Committee has spent much of its time ensuring those laws are implemented properly, reviewing them for possible changes and updates, and anticipating future needs.
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