In the latest turn of events in the Congressional "cyberwar" saga, the Senate failed to invoke cloture to halt amendments on S 3414, the Lieberman-Collins "cybersecurity" bill. The vote was 52-46.
With Lieberman-Collins now dead & McCain's SECUREIT stuck in the swamp — & hence nothing forthcoming to conference with the horrifying, hateful cyber-Big-Brother bill CISPA from the House — the entire effort looks down & out for the year. That said, of course, we should keep our eyes open — not only on what Congress may try to pull during the the lame duck session, but also on plenty of other nasty, Internet-crippling legislation that's still on the table (such as the latest version of Lamar Smith's PCIPA).
While plenty of business interests that lobbied against the bill had gripes about how being made into Internet Thought Police for the NSA would hurt their own bottom lines, no doubt plenty of credit also goes to the thousands of calls, e-mails, & Tweets that ordinary users have made to the senators' offices in the last several days. As with the SOPA/PIPA fights, the Internet has shown itself to be a strong & growing political force this year.
(Relevant Techdirt article here)