Tag: Congress

Crypto For Congress Puts “American-Made” Bitcoin Into The Hands Of Policymakers

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This week, the Chamber of Digital Commerce PAC sent all 535 members of the United States Congress about 0.0047 BTC ($50 worth at the time), in an effort to educate the country’s legislators around cryptocurrency and blockchain technology that it calls Crypto For Congress.

Leveraging Federal Election Commission rules that allow for cryptocurrency-based campaign contributions and its own Political Action Committee to make the BTC donations, the Chamber of Digital Commerce ultimately hopes to motivate these lawmakers to embrace the advantages presented by blockchain technology.

“Our industry faces a number of regulatory challenges and it’s important for our government officials to have a working knowledge of how this technology works,” Perianne Boring, founder and president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, told Bitcoin Magazine. “If you look at tax laws, securities laws, if you look at compliance obligations, there are a lot of examples of regulators and policymakers who

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Antitrust chair says Congress will need the people’s help to rein in powerful Big Tech companies

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Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) thinks antitrust regulation of Big Tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google is going to be tough, and in order to pass meaningful reforms that rein in the power of Big Tech companies, Congress will need the help of the American people. Cicilline is chair of the antitrust subcommittee in Congress and spoke Sunday as part of a Yale University School of Law conference about antitrust ahead of the anticipated release of what Cicilline calls the most extensive antitrust law reform investigation by Congress in more than 50 years.

Identifying anticompetitive behavior by big companies is pretty easy, he said, but developing solutions and gathering the necessary political support for reform is the challenge.

“We’re going to have to combat companies that have an enormous stake in maintaining the status quo, which has been enormously profitable for them, and so this will be a big

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Pro-Crypto PAC Giving $50 in Bitcoin to the Campaign of Each Member of Congress

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Capitol building, Washington D.C.

If your elected representative to the U.S. Congress has never heard of cryptocurrencies, how do you start telling them about it? Hoping to raise awareness, blockchain advocacy group Chamber of Digital Commerce’s Political Action Committee (PAC) wants to start by contributing $50 worth of bitcoin to the campaign of each congressperson. 

Announced Monday, the advocacy group said under its new “Crypto for Congress” initiative all members of the U.S. legislative body would receive campaign contributions in bitcoin. 

According to the group’s founder, Perianne Boring, this is an attempt to raise awareness and give congresspeople a chance to interact with blockchain technology and digital assets. In addition to the contribution, the Chamber’s PAC will also provide online training and a toolkit to help members of Congress engage with cryptocurrencies. 

  • “One of the biggest challenges we’ve always had is people just really don’t understand what the heck it is we’re talking about,”
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Twitter, Facebook, and Google CEOs to testify on Oct. 28 to Congress

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Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, arrives for a hearing on May 6 in Washington, D.C.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, arrives for a hearing on May 6 in Washington, D.C.

Less than a week before the 2020 presidential election, three of the biggest names in tech—Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey—will testify before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation about a longstanding law that protects websites from liability for user-generated content.

The committee unanimously voted to subpoena the men on Thursday. They’re scheduled to testify on Oct. 28, according to committee aides who spoke with Politico on Friday on the condition of anonymity. While the subpoenas are ready to go out, they will not be formally issued because the CEOs have voluntarily agreed to appear before the committee, one aide told the outlet.

Their testimony will address Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a

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Facebook, Google, Twitter CEOs to testify in Congress over Section 230

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  • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google parent Alphabet, have agreed to testify before Congress on October 28.
  • Twitter said in a tweet Friday that Dorsey had “voluntarily agreed to testify,” while calling for “reasoned and productive debate” over “reactionary and politicized attempts to erode #Section230.”
  • The Washington Post reporter Tony Romm earlier reported that Zuckerberg and Pichai had agreed to appear as well, while a Facebook spokesperson confirmed Zuckerberg’s appearance with Business Insider.
  • The Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is holding the hearing, where lawmakers will question the executives over Section 230, a legal protection for internet companies that has come under fire from both sides of the aisle.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The heads of Facebook, Google, and Twitter have all agreed to testify before Congress about social media regulation on October 28, just days before the

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Two New Bills In Congress Offer Clarity For Blockchain Tokens And Crypto Exchanges

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Regulatory clarity is what is cried out for by the crypto industry. In leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a set of arcane laws to create guidance regarding blockchain tokens, the default of ‘regulation by enforcement’ has left many entrepreneurs dissuaded about the ability to create and develop blockchain technology. Worse, the ultimate lack of action by all five SEC Commissioners , save of course the exception of ‘Crypto Mom’ Hester Peirce who is fiery in her dissent and a healthy reminder of the powerful role the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg played, has left Congress no choice but to step in and take control of the train wreck that is the U.S. regulatory landscape for crypto.

Needless to say, it is a huge day in the world of crypto. First, Congressman Tom Emmer (R-NC) introduced the ‘Securities Clarity Act’ that makes a fundamental change to what

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The DOJ asked Congress to erode big tech’s legal protections as Trump accused firms of anti-conservative bias and ‘cancel culture’

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a man looking at the camera: Attorney General William Barr (center) listens during a discussion with state attorneys general on social media abuses hosted by President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, September 23, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner

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Attorney General William Barr (center) listens during a discussion with state attorneys general on social media abuses hosted by President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room at the White House in Washington, September 23, 2020. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
  • Attorney General William Barr announced Wednesday the Department of Justice has submitted legislation to Congress to reform the part of the US law that gives tech companies broad powers to moderate their platforms.
  • Barr said the proposed legislation is aimed at “requiring greater transparency and accountability when platforms remove lawful speech.”
  • The legislation follows on from an executive order issued by President Trump in May targeting social media for alleged anti-conservative bias.
  • Trump often claims online platforms are biased against conservatives, but has provided minimal evidence backing this up. 
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

President Trump is ramping up the pressure on social media companies.

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NASA chief warns Congress about Chinese space station

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A Long March 5B rocket lifts off from the Wenchang launch site on China's southern in May; Chinese state media reported the &quo
A Long March 5B rocket lifts off from the Wenchang launch site on China’s southern in May; Chinese state media reported the “successful” launch, a major test of its ambitions to operate a permanent space station and send astronauts to the Moon

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine told lawmakers Wednesday it was crucial for the US to maintain a presence in Earth’s orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned so that China does not gain a strategic advantage.


The first parts of the ISS were launched in 1998 and it has been continuously lived in since 2000.

The station, which serves as a space science lab and is a partnership between the US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada, is currently expected to be operated until 2030.

“I’ll tell you one thing that has me very concerned—and that is that a day is coming when the International Space Station comes to

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Justice Dept. urges Congress to limit tech’s legal shield

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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department sent Congress draft legislation on Wednesday that would reduce a legal shield for platforms like Facebook and YouTube, in the latest effort by the Trump administration to revisit the law as the president claims those companies are slanted against conservative voices.

The original law, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, makes it difficult to sue online platforms over the content they host or the way they moderate it. Under the proposed changes, technology platforms that purposely facilitate “harmful criminal activity” would not receive the protections, the department said. Platforms that allow “known criminal content” to stay up once they know it exists would lose the protections for that content.

Attorney General William Barr, in a statement, urged lawmakers to “begin to hold online platforms accountable both when they unlawfully censor speech and when they knowingly facilitate egregious criminal activity online.” (While they are shielded

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Justice Department asks Congress to limit Section 230 protections for tech firms

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The U.S. Justice Department today sent Congress draft legislation intended to limit the scope of Section 230, a legal shield that gives online platforms immunity against certain types of lawsuits. 

Section 230 is a statute in the Communications Decency Act that protects companies such as Facebook Inc. from being held legally liable for user content. It allows tech firms to remove a post without the risk of being sued if they deem it to be “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for Section 230 to be revised amid a broader debate in Washington about social media.

The change proposed by the Justice Department today consists of several points. First, the draft legislation seeks to narrow the criteria that tech companies must meet to qualify for the Section 230 legal shield. Under the proposal, an online platform could

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