Contact your Senator: CISPA, not needed for security, will SHRED civil liberties

[GiaGiovanni]

I know there's a lot going on this morning, but don't let this get lost in the mix:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/04/security-experts-cispa-not-needed-would-do-more-harm-than-good.html

Security Experts: CISPA Not Needed, Would Do More Harm than Good

...CISPA, introduced last fall by Rep. Michael Rogers (R-MI), is designed, in part, to allow intelligence agencies to share information about ongoing threats and attacks, not just among themselves but also with appropriate private-sector companies. Critics worry that the bill would eliminate some of the existing protections against warrantless wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping and would not give users any knowledge of or recourse against the sharing of their private communications.

The bill is scheduled to go to the House floor for a vote this week and final amendments to the measure are due today. Some people have compared CISPA to SOPA, the highly controversial online copyright legislation that was the focus of so much criticism and anger. The bills are not that much alike and have different scopes and goals, and CISPA does not seem to be drawing quite as much public reaction as SOPA did.

However, some groups warn that CISPA may, in fact, be worse for consumers’ rights than SOPA would have been. Officials at the Center for Democracy and Technology said that “CISPA has a very broad, almost unlimited definition of the information that can be shared with government agencies and it supersedes all other privacy laws” and “is likely to lead to expansion of the government’s role in the monitoring of private communications.”

In their letter to lawmakers, the group of Internet engineers, security experts and academics said that passing CISPA would be a major mistake....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/18/cispa-2013-house-vote-internet-privacy

Oppose Cispa if you value any privacy in our digital world

...As the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Mark Jaycox put it in an open forum on Reddit last week, here are some of Cispa's consequences:

Companies have new rights to monitor user actions and share data – including potentially sensitive user data – with the government without a warrant.

Cispa overrides existing privacy law, and grants broad immunities to participating companies.

Information provided to the federal government under Cispa would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other state laws that could otherwise require disclosure (unless some law other than Cispa already requires its provision to the government).

Cispa's authors argue that the bill contains limitations on how the federal government can use and disclose information by permitting lawsuits against the government. But if a company sends information about a user that is not cyberthreat information, the government agency does not notify the user, only the company....

CISPA has already PASSED the House of Representatives. It's up to US to call the Senate and get them to tank this bill. And for those who think this sounds like "Groundhog Day", it is. We went through this last year. Once again, CISPA is being pushed on the American people even though it has already failed once. No doubt, the events in Boston and the ricin attacks will be used to bolster the case for CISPA as a "security measure" but don't buy the hype.

PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SENATOR!

[MotherPetrie]

1. Done and K&R

[GiaGiovanni]

2. Thank you

That makes two of us!

[GiaGiovanni]

3. Up you go

Up

[GiaGiovanni]

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[GiaGiovanni]

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[klook]

6. Thanks for this info. This is the latest stage of Warrantless Wiretapping, and must be stopped.

I posted a new thread on this topic today.

Hoping to generate some interest among DUers.

[woo me with science]

7. K&R