The apparent total lack of understanding from the US congress about the very things they legislate upon strikes me lately.

I'm a Canadian myself and our current government isn't any better (or only slightly) in this regard. It seems to me that the basic step would be to ensure you understand what you're talking about before trying to make up laws.

What the hell is wrong with these people. Randomness in the chosen dataset is an inherent concept of statistics. Any high schooler is familiar with this for christ's sake.