House Passes CISPA Cyberthreat Sharing Bill, Despite Privacy Concerns/ Goes to Senate

[KoKo]

You can go to EFF site and sign the Petition....I know...another petition...but, EFF does get some action and has good creds in getting listened to:

Link:

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8609


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House Passes CISPA Cyberthreat Sharing Bill, Despite Privacy Concerns

By Grant Gross, IDG News Apr 26, 2012 10:39 pm

CISPA now moves to the Senate.

CISPA would allow companies such as broadband providers to share customer communications related to cyberthreats with a wide range of government agencies. The bill exempts private companies that share cyberthreat information in "good faith" from customer lawsuits.

But the CDT and other opponents of the bill questioned whether the information sharing from private companies to government agencies would be truly voluntary, when many telecom providers bid on government contracts.

"In an effort to foster information sharing, this bill would erode the privacy protections of every single American using the Internet," said Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat. "It would create a Wild West of information sharing, where any certified business can share with any government agency, who can then use the information for any national security purpose, and grant that business immunity from virtually any liability."

CISPA would allow companies to share private and sensitive information with government agencies without a warrant and without proper oversight, the ACLU said in a statement.

"CISPA goes too far for little reason," Michelle Richardson, ACLU legislative counsel, said in a statement. "Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans' online privacy. As we've seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there's no going back."

CISPA has support from several tech companies and trade groups, including Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, TechAmerica and CTIA. For years, tech companies have complained about legal hurdles to sharing cyberthreat information with each other and with the government.

The House vote was a "critical step forward" for the cybersecurity of the U.S., Shawn Osborne, TechAmerica's president and CEO, said in a statement.

More Info at.......

http://www.pcworld.com/article/254573/house_passes_cispa_cyberthreat_sharing_bill_despite_privacy_concerns.html


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CISPA Monitoring Bill: Just the Facts

By Jared Newman, PCWorld Apr 13, 2012 6:34 PM

The Basics on CISPA

CISPA would allow the U.S. government and private companies to communicate more freely about cyber-security threat information. The intelligence community would be allowed to share threat details with private companies, and companies would be encouraged to share their own knowledge, though doing so would not be mandatory.

Private companies would only be allowed to use information to protect themselves and their customers--not to gain a competitive advantage--and, in doing so, would be protected from lawsuits. The information shared would be exempted from public disclosure.


Arguments Against CISPA

Groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union argue that CISPA is too broad. By using vague language, the EFF argues that companies could use the bill to filter content, monitor e-mails, and block access to websites. And, although the bill has little to do with SOPA and PIPA, it does define intellectual property theft as a type of cyberattack, raising concerns that content owners could use the bill to censor websites.

Critics also worry that the bill doesn't limit the type of information that can be shared. “We just want people to know that Congress is on the verge of giving the government incredible new authorities to collect sensitive and personal Internet information and emails,” Michelle Richardson, a legislative counsel for the ACLU, told Politico.

The Sunlight Foundation notes that shared data between the government and businesses would be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. “The FOIA is, in many ways, the fundamental safeguard for public oversight of government's activities. CISPA dismisses it entirely, for the core activities of the newly proposed powers under the bill,” The Sunlight Foundation wrote in a blog

More Info at...........
http://www.pcworld.com/article/253800/cispa_monitoring_bill_just_the_facts.html#tk.mod_stln