This is the second time that CISPA has been introduced to the Senate, in which the first time it was strongly shut down. This time around, the legislation has seen some modifications, but organizations and even Senate committees are almost certain that it won’t make it through the Senate floor, and instead, they’re drafting up separate legislation that everyone can agree on.

According to a representative of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the bill will most certainly be shelved, saying that the Senate is “not taking [CISPA] up.” Instead, “staff and senators are divvying up the issues and the key provisions everyone agrees would need to be handled if we’re going to strengthen cybersecurity.”

Essentially, CISPA will allow companies to share information about you with the government in order to strengthen security against various cyber threats. This has raised a lot of privacy concerns, and those against the bill argue that the bill violates privacy more than it needs to in order to strengthen cybersecurity.

[via US News]

CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was passed by the House on April 18th with a majority vote of 288 to 127. The bill will allow corporations to share their users’ personal information with the government without the government needing a warrant beforehand. The bill will kill any privacy contracts that companies have with their users, the same contracts that ensure users that they will not share their personal information with anyone.

Currently, the White House is concerned over CISPA, and may veto it because it invades the privacy of internet users. In a statement that it issued last Tuesday, it stated that even with its new amendments, CISPA,

“does not require private entities to take reasonable steps to remove irrelevant personal information when sending cybersecurity data to the government or other private sector entities. We have long said that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include proper privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the appropriate roles of civilian and intelligence agencies, and include targeted liability protections.”

In order to encourage the White House to veto the bill, Anonymous, and the vast majority of the internet, will participate in the blackout to show their unified opposition against it. There were several petitions made that were signed by over 1.5 million users, however, it still wasn’t enough to get Congress to change their minds, or take the public’s opinion seriously. Senator Mike Rogers, Representative of Michigan, stated that many of those against CISPA were just “teenagers in their basements”, and that many powerful internet entities, like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, are in support of the bill. He says,

“The very companies that you say are uncomfortable with this support this bill. The people who are in the business of prosperity on the Internet think this is the right approach.”

With the blackout, Anonymous hopes that President Obama will see how strongly opposed the vast majority of the internet is against the bill, and hopes that he will be convinced to veto it. This internet blackout will be similar to the blackout that occurred last year in opposition of SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), which garnered support from over 7,000 sites. If you have a website, and you plan on participating in the event, Anonymous has provided instructions on how to do so.

[via Huffington Post]

The announcement of the passed bill was made by the House Intelligence Committee via Twitter, who also noted that CISPA passed the House with 92 Democrats voting for the bill “despite the President’s veto threat.” The committee also mentions that there was overwhelming bipartisan majority, and Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said that, by passing the bill, the House has “shown how bipartisanship works.”

However, there’s still grave concern over privacy issues. CISPA’s plan is to essentially dig up information on you by allowing companies to share your data with the government in order to strengthen security against various cyber threats. The bill is now one one step closer to becoming a law thanks to today’s House passing.

Furthermore, unlike SOPA, President Obama may sign the CISPA bill to officially make it a law. He has signed an executive cybersecurity order, and he’s been urging Congress the past few months to create legislation that would broaden the order. However, the White House said that it would veto CISPA if significant changes weren’t made to the bill.

CISPA is the latest in a long line of surveillance acts that causes a weeping and gnashing of teeth among privacy advocates. The primary concerns about CISPA center around the lack of checks and balances that it gives to US federal agencies’ ability to monitor private citizens’ habits on the Internet and other digital mediums. Ohanian is one of these, and he also spoke out strongly against SOPA, the failed anti-piracy act that many consider a precursor to the current legislation. Speaking with CNN, Ohanian praised Facebook’s accomplishments and creator Mark Zuckerberg’s single-minded drive, but said that he could not invent in the company due to its support of the bill. Notably, a large contingent of Reddit’s actively political population has already mobilized against the bill.

CISPA has passed through the US House of Representatives, and is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate. President Obama has stated that he intends to veto the bill if it passes his desk in its current form, citing a lack of confidentiality and security safeguards. Major lobbying associations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU have taken issue with its overly broad definition of “Cybercrime”, and the means with which it may be monitored. Other major proponents include the CTIA, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the US Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, IBM, Intel, and Oracle.

[via ZDnet]

photo by Anirudh Koul

The bill itself was supposed to be put up for a vote later than it has been presented, here this week being changed radically with several amendments that broaden its power tenfold and voted upon essentially in secret just yesterday. It was Hillary Clinton Senior Adviser for Innovation mister Alec Ross who spoke up this week on behalf of the White House.

“The Obama administration opposes CISPA. The president has called for comprehensive cybersecurity legislation. There is absolutely a need for comprehensive cybersecurity legislation. [But] part of what has been communicated to congressional committees is that we want legislation to come with necessary protections for individuals.” – Ross

At the moment it’s not clear whether this means that the Obama Administration would veto the bill when it crosses the President’s desk. The bill must be approved by the President, for those of you unfamiliar with the process here, unless when he does both the Senate and the House are able to ratify it without the President’s approval. We’ll see about that inside the next few weeks.

Meanwhile it appears that groups like Reddit are planning new Internet Blackout efforts to demonstrate the seriousness of the bill. Similar protests were initiated for the bills SOPA and PIPA earlier this year with great success.

The bill is supposed to allow the government to use information for “cybersecurity” and “national security” purposes, but three recent additions to the bill give it an even wider (and vaguer) scope. TechDirt details the additions as the “investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children,” and that “Cybersecurity crime is defined as any crime involving network disruption or hacking, plus any violation of the CFAA.”

So if the government suspects you of having committed some kind of cybercrime, they can dig through your information without falling foul of privacy laws. There’s no limit to what the government can use the data for, either, just as long as say that there was some kind of danger. The even crazier part is that Google and Facebook support the bill, believing it help will protect them from cybercrimes.

It’s not all bad news: first the bill would have to pass the Senate, then it would need to be signed into law by President Obama. He’s so far maintained a firm stance on the issue, saying he will veto the bill if it lands on his desk. The fact that it managed to pass the House without too many issues is a cause for concern though, and the EFF suggests you get in touch with your local representative in Congress to drum up awareness of how damaging this bill could potentially be.