Got this from Cryptome:
At issue is H.R. 46, a seemingly harmless bill titled ‘Public Safety Medal of Valor.’ The bill sets up a federal board to award federal Medals of Valor to policemen, federal agents, and the like. But Congress, unlike many state legislatures, does not operate under a constitutional requirement that a bill’s subject matter and title be the same. And it turns out that there’s much more in this bill than just medals for firefighters. What the bill does is:
- Expand federal asset forfeiture.
- Expand wiretapping.
- Provide special additional punishments for people who use encryption.
- Federalize juvenile crimes, which are properly matters for state governments to address.
The House committee report on the bill, of course, only discusses medals for police officers ? and not any of the unrelated material which is being added in the closing hours of Congress. The unrelated, dangerous, material comes mostly from the never-passed H.R. 2448.
Crazy, no? Just another example of how fucked up the US legal system is.