CISPA‏

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act

Republicans love it.  Big Business loves it.  Democrats pretend to hate it.  Wink Wink.

Republicans who are all about…… Freedom……Liberty……..Privacy……..Small Government…..Can’t wait to take away your freedom, liberty, privacy, and increase the powers of the government.

http://techland.time.com/2012/04/30/the-breakdown-who-supports-cispa-and-who-doesnt/

The concern by some is that the bill’s language is too broad, giving companies and the government power to intercept, share or block user information as long as it is to fight “cybersecurity threats.” Proponents say it will increase the ease and speed with which the private and public sectors can cooperate to fight threats against this country’s woefully unprepared networks.

Supporters

When one company detects an attack, sharing information about that attack promptly with other companies can help protect those other companies and their users from being victimized by the same attack.” Sounds reasonable, although some critics of the bill believe tech companies are supporting it because it protects them from lawsuits.

Non-regulatory is the key phrase in the company’s letter to Mike Rogers (R – MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the author of CISPA. The bill makes it much more difficult for a user to sue a company if it gives his or her information over to the government.

Companies and the government would have a lot of freedom to share (Your) information without worrying about legal action.

Opposed

“the bill would allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishing requirements for both industry and the Government to minimize and protect personally identifiable information.”

the Congressional Privacy Caucus proposed an amendment that would have explicitly banned the government from using information for anything other than fighting cybersecurity threats.

If this piece of legislation had a privacy policy, it would be ‘You have no privacy!’. In its current form, this legislation would allow companies to share personal information about consumers with other companies, even if that information has nothing to do with cybersecurity.

The language of the bill is too broad, and it’s hard to know what information will actually be shared by private entities as a result of the bill, or what “cybersecurity systems” will do once they are enabled … CISPA also grants sweeping immunity to companies to share information

Ron Paul called it “Big Brother writ large” and “essentially an internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight–provided, of course, that they do so in the name of ‘cybersecurity.’ “