CISPA: Congress weighs privacy against 'cyber threats'
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA (HR 3523), is a controversial bill intended to let businesses and governments share information about "cyber threats" by circumventing privacy laws. The bill has passed the US House of Representatives, but President Barack Obama is expected to veto it if a final version is approved.
White House responds to petition against CISPA, calls for new bill that 'protects privacy'
The White House has finally responded to a petition on its website signed by over 100,000 web users protesting the controversial cybersecurity bill CISPA, which was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month. In its response to the petition, the White House comes out more forcefully against the bill, saying "This legislation still doesn't adequately address our fundamental concerns" about privacy, and pointing back to the veto threat issued by President Obama's office two weeks...
Senate Commerce Committee suggests CISPA may be dead in the water
CISPA, the controversial cybersecurity legislation passed by the House of Representatives last week, may be effectively dead for now. US News has reported that the Senate Commerce Committee, headed by Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), doesn't see the bill being taken up by the Senate. Instead, the committee is working on separate bills that will address cybersecurity but hopefully avoid CISPA's privacy pitfalls. "We're not taking [CISPA] up," says a representative. "Staff and senators are...
House passes revamped CISPA cybersecurity bill amidst warnings of 'digital bombs'
The US House of Representatives has once again passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which died in the Senate last year, by a margin of 288 to 127 after two days of debate. Over several hours, House opinion on the bill boiled down to whether the redesigned CISPA successfully addressed criticism from civil libertarians, and whether the threat of cyberattacks was grave enough to justify overriding lingering concerns. Representative Candice Miller (R-MI), a CISPA...
White House will oppose CISPA in its current form
As an amended version of CISPA nears a vote on the House floor, the White House has once again stated that it has fundamental problems with the cybersecurity bill in its current form. In an official policy statement, the Obama Administration said that lawmakers had not addressed several issues regarding information-sharing and privacy, and that "if the bill, as currently crafted, were presented to the President, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the bill." Instead, it urged a...
Cyber threats at the top of US intelligence report for the first time
Cyber threats are the number one type of danger facing the United States, according to US national intelligence director James Clapper, the man in charge of coordinating the CIA and the NSA, among many other agencies. "As more and more state and nonstate actors gain cyber expertise, its importance and reach as a global threat cannot be overstated," Clapper said in testimony he gave to the House Intelligence Committee last week, as part of his office's annual global threat assessment report.
Lobbying group representing Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft sends letter to Congress in support of CISPA
Amid warnings from the White House and civil liberties groups, a trade association representing Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Oracle, and other tech companies has come out in support of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which passed a House committee vote this week. The Hill reports that the lobbying group, TechNet, sent a letter to the leaders of the House Intelligence panel on Wednesday praising lawmakers for their work on the bill, with TechNet CEO Rey...
White House knocks amended CISPA bill for not addressing civil liberties concerns
As US cybersecurity bill CISPA heads to the House Floor for a vote, the White House National Security Council has issued a statement suggesting that the President won't support it in its current form. "We continue to believe that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation," NSC spokesperson Caitlin Hayden told the Los Angeles Times in a statement. "But they must include privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the roles of civilian and intelligence...
CISPA passes committee, will head to the House floor for a vote
In an 18-2 vote behind closed doors, the House Intelligence Committee passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) cybersecurity bill. While the bill's final text is still unknown, The Hill reports that a number of amendments supported by the bill's sponsors were approved during markup, including one change that would require the government to remove personal information from "cyber threat" data they receive from private companies. The Hill also reports that...
House Intelligence Committee to again mark up CISPA bill behind closed doors
Just as it did last year, the US House Intelligence Committee will hold its markup of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) out of public view in a closed session. The committee has yet to formally schedule the markup, where it will discuss and consider potential amendments to the cybersecurity bill. Designed to grant private companies the ability to share information on suspected online threats with the government (and vice versa), CISPA — now on its...
Facebook and Microsoft soften support for latest CISPA bill
Facebook has joined Microsoft in offering a very lukewarm statement about pending legislation in Congress, the recently-reintroduced Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The goal of CISPA is to allow companies to share information on "cyber threats" with the government, but the scope, nature, and direction of that sharing has raised the hackles of privacy advocates. Although both companies supported CISPA the first time around, their backing isn't as forthcoming this year....
White House must now respond to CISPA protest petition, 100,000 signatures reached
The White House must issue a public statement on the controversial cybersecurity bill CISPA now that an online petition protesting the bill has passed 100,000 signatures, the minimum threshold that is required for a response from the administration on its "We The People" website. The petition, which calls upon the Obama Administration to stop the bill from being passed into law, earned its 100,000th signature late last night, exactly a month after it was first posted by an opponent in New...
Controversial cyber bill CISPA returns to Congress for debate, same as before
President Obama announced a new cybersecurity executive order in his State of the Union address last night and urged Congress to follow his lead "by passing legislation to give our government a greater capacity to secure our networks and deter attacks."
Congress is acting today by reintroducing the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), an older bill President Obama threatened to veto last year that would allow private companies to share information on "cyber threats" with...
Policy & Law
Join Nilay and TC for a Reddit 'AMA' on CISPA at 11AM ET
As part of Reddit's efforts to understand the controversial CISPA cybersecurity legislation more thoroughly, we've been invited to take part in an "AMA" (ask me anything) to answer questions about the bill. Our own Nilay Patel and T.C. Sottek will be taking questions about the bill on Reddit in its r/technology subsection — so hop over starting at 11AM ET and post your own questions if you'd like to learn more about CISPA, what it does, and where it's headed. In the meantime, be sure to...
Web & Social
Who supports and opposes CISPA, and why?
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which recently passed the US House of Representatives, will soon see its counterpart bills debated in the Senate. The vote on CISPA comes only months after the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was withdrawn after widespread protest, and many are wondering whether CISPA will garner the same high-profile opposition. By allowing companies to share user data with each other or the government to combat vaguely defined "cyber threats," CISPA...
Web & Social
Mozilla comes out against CISPA, says 'the bill infringes on our privacy'
Despite the apprehension felt by many over CISPA, the bill continues to have many high-profile supporters in the tech industry, including the likes of Intel, Oracle, and Microsoft. Mozilla, however, is speaking out, telling Forbes in a statement that while the company does believe there is a need for stronger safeguards, "CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security" and "infringes on our privacy." While many companies have lined up in the CISPA debate, one of...
Culture
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act: CISPA explained
Following its failure to pass the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), the second session of the 112th Congress is on track for a repeat performance in internet controversy with a bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The bill just passed the House of Representatives, and a companion bill in the Senate will soon be debated and voted on. Unlike SOPA, which focused on piracy and intellectual property, CISPA was originally intended to guard against "cyber threats" that...
US House passes controversial CISPA cybersecurity bill, now on to the Senate
The US House of Representatives has just passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA (HR 3523) by a vote of 248 to 168. The bill passed mostly along party lines, backed by House Republicans. While the bill is intended to safeguard the US against "cyber threats," critics say that it is too vague and broad, and would give government and military intelligence agencies the ability to inspect private data without the use of warrants. While the bill hasn't...
Web & Social
White House threatens to veto CISPA cybersecurity bill, ahead of Friday's vote
On Friday, the US House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA for short. It's a controversial bill, to be sure. Supporters, including a who's who of tech industry firms, say that having government and corporations share internet data is necessary to ensure network security and national defense. Detractors claim it would allow private companies to misuse their customers' personal data without fear of legal retribution, as long as...
