CISPA Remains Fatally Flawed After Secret Committee Markup

[frigidmagi]

aclu

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday marked up CISPA, the controversial cybersecurity bill that allows companies to share their customers' sensitive internet information with each other and the government. The bill's sponsors and corporations are not only declaring victory, but aggressively arguing that all privacy and civil liberties problems have been solved.

This couldn't be further from the truth.

We have flagged four general categories of problems in CISPA that have to be fixed before it is passed, and the markup only substantially fixed one of them:


Civilian Control of Domestic Cyber Programs No Offered by Rep. Schakowsky; Failed

Limit Sharing of Personal Information No Offered by Rep. Schiff; Failed

Remove Unlimited Immunity for "Hack Backs" No Incomplete Fix Offered by Langevin; Passed

Incorporate Post-Collection Protections on Information Yes Offered by Reps. Himes and Sewell; Passed

While protecting information after it is shared is critical, it alone does not ameliorate the overarching problems with the bill. The core problem is that CISPA allows too much sensitive information to be shared with too many people in the first place, including the National Security Agency.

wo provisions in the manager's amendment actually removed protections added to CISPA last year. First, Rep. Justin Amash's (R-Mich.) ban on collecting library, tax, gun, and other records was reversed so that these records are collected pursuant to the privacy and minimization procedures that will apply to all records under the new draft. Second, the government is no longer banned from "affirmatively searching" through the information collected through CISPA, so long as it does so for an authorized purpose.

Because the new CISPA is just too much like the old CISPA, the ACLU continues to oppose this overbroad privacy-eviscerating bill. We will support floor amendments to fix the remaining problems and will be looking for your support.

Time is running out though: the House is expected to vote on CISPA next week.

Tell your members of Congress to vote "no" on CISPA as long as it allows such unaccountable sharing of our intimate information. Also demand that President Obama threaten to veto CISPA like he did last year, because cyberesecurity can be done right without sacrificing our privacy online.

[B4UTRUST]

Honestly, they've been trying to push this and other bills like it through for the last few years and all of them piss me off. I've contacted my congresscritters the same as I contact them for 2nd amendment issues(ie probably about once or twice a day, depending). The fact that this still may get pushed through is complete crap.

I'd say start threatening the companies themselves with boycotts and talk with your wallets over their involvement with this shit, but the list of companies supporting this is so vast it's mindboggling. Hell, there's companies that I can't figure out why the fuck they're involved at all. I'm looking at you, Pepsi.

But really, I think the problem here, at least in my mind, is the inevitability of this whole mess. As defeatist as this sounds, it's how I feel. In the last year we've had SOPA, PIPA, CSA, SECURE IT, and CISPA. So far they've all been shot down except for CISPA. It's getting to the point that I believe it to be obvious that this just will not die. It may or may not die as CISPA but if it does die, it'll come back in 4-5 months when people start to forget about it under a new name to try this shit all over. And honestly that really depresses the hell out of me.

[frigidmagi]

Look it's simple, we keep fighting as long as they keep trying. All this shit is costing them way more money then it's costing us. Sooner or later they'll decide it's just not cost effective to keep trying. Keep swinging.

[General Havoc]

So when else bills pass, it's the end of civilization, and when they don't pass, it is the end of civilization.

Wake me up when this bill is being considered seriously. I refuse to spend outrage merely on the fact that it exists, particularly not when my reward for lobbying aggressively against SOPA is to have people whine to me about how it just doesn't matter

[frigidmagi]

Or you could look at google and find out it already passed the house.

[General Havoc]

Or you could look at google and find out it already passed the house.

Or perhaps I could spend my time doing things other than dropping everything to Google today's "outrage theatre" moment.

[Hotfoot]

Havoc, I think it's a bit uncharitable to assume that Frigid is telling you that your opposition to SOPA didn't matter, or that any of the rest of us were silent in that regard. I think most of us here helped melt the switchboards and send emails and such. But it's a fight that doesn't end until they stop trying to slip it through. They're hoping that if they wait long enough, we'll give up on today's "outrage theatre" and move on, letting them slip through the cracks. It's not a drop everything matter, either. We can put it on the queue and see where it's going and make the appropriate calls and emails and letters as we go. If there's another organized protest, we can do things then.