US Senate unanimously passes defense spending bill
transferring detainees from the Guantanamo prison camp on Cuba to the United States, and prohibitions on
the military detention of U.S. Citizens. A measure included in the bill would require U.S. defense
contractors that work on classified programs to notify the government if their computer networks are breached. It would also require the Pentagon to consult lawmakers if it decides to elevate U.S. Cyber Command to a full unified combatant command, on the same footing as its parent Strategic
Command and the Defense Department's eight other top-level military units.
The bill also bans funding for a missile defense project funded jointly by the United States, Germany and Italy – the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) that is built by Lockheed Martin Corp and its partners in Italy and Germany.
VETO THREAT BY WHITE HOUSE
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had urged lawmakers to include $400.9 million as final funding for the program, which is being discontinued after this year. The White House threatened to veto the bill over the changes to the Pentagon's proposed budget and the restrictions on transfers of Guantanamo detainees.
The bill includes a provision that would lift the ban on women in the military using their health insurance for abortion care in cases of rape or incest, and another that would require creation of a comprehensive suicide-prevention program. It also includes an overhaul of wartime contracting rules after the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan found the United States had squandered up to $60 billion through waste and fraud on
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