[governance] Cispa cybersecurity bill passed by House of Representatives
Riaz K Tayob
riaz.tayob at gmail.com
Fri Apr 27 15:38:25 EDT 2012
Cispa cybersecurity bill passed by House of Representatives
Republican-controlled House defies Obama over legislation to prevent
electronic attacks on US
*
o <http://www.facebook.com/dialog/feed?app_id=180444840287&link=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/27/cispa-cybersecurity-bill-passed-senate&display=popup&redirect_uri=http://static-serve.appspot.com/static/facebook-share/callback.html&show_error=false>
*
Associated Press in Washington
* guardian.co.uk <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, Friday 27 April 2012
10.12 BST
* Article history
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/27/cispa-cybersecurity-bill-passed-senate#history-link-box>
John Boehner
House speaker John Boehner: 'The White House believes the government
ought to control the internet.' Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
The House of Representatives has ignored objections from Barack Obama's
administration and approved legislation aimed at helping to thwart
electronic attacks on critical US infrastructure and private companies.
On a bipartisan vote of 248-168, the Republican-controlled House backed
the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (Cispa
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/cispa>), which would encourage
companies and the federal government to share information collected on
the internet <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet> to prevent
electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign governments and terrorists.
"This is the last bastion of things we need to do to protect this
country," Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the House intelligence
committee, said after more than five hours of debate.
More than 10 years after the September 11 terror attacks in 2001,
proponents cast the bill as an initial step to deal with an evolving
threat of the internet age. The information-sharing would be voluntary
to avoid imposing new regulations on businesses, an imperative for
Republicans.
The legislation would allow the government to relay cyber threat
information to a company to prevent attacks from Russia or China. In the
private sector, corporations could alert the government and provide data
that could stop an attack intended to disrupt the country's water supply
or take down the banking system.
<http://gawker.com/5905081/the-non+geeks-guide-to-cispa-the-cybersecurity-bill-the-internet-is-freaking-out-over>
The Obama administration
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-administration> has threatened a
veto of the House bill, preferring a Senate measure that would give the
homeland security department the primary role in overseeing domestic
cybersecurity and the authority to set security standards. That Senate
bill remains stalled.
The Republican House speaker, John Boehner, said the administration's
approach was misguided.
"The White House believes the government ought to control the internet,
government ought to set standards and government ought to take care of
everything that's needed for cybersecurity," Boehner told reporters at
his weekly news conference. "They're in a camp all by themselves."
Faced with widespread privacy <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/privacy>
concerns, Rogers and Republican CA "Dutch" Ruppersberger , the
intelligence panel's top Democrat, pulled together an amendment that
limits the government's use of threat information to five specific
purposes: cybersecurity; investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity
crimes; protection of individuals from death or serious bodily harm;
protection of minors from child pornography; and the protection of
national security.
The House passed the amendment by 410 votes to three.
The White House, along with a coalition of liberal and conservative
groups and lawmakers, strongly opposed the measure, complaining that
Americans' privacy could be violated. They argued that companies could
share an employee's personal information with the government, data that
could end up in the hands of officials from the National Security Agency
or the defence department. They also challenged the bill's liability
waiver for private companies that disclose information, complaining it
was too broad.
"Once in government hands, this information can be used for undefined
'national security' purposes unrelated to cybersecurity," a coalition
that included the American Civil Liberties Union and former conservative
Republican representative Bob Barr, lawmakers said on Thursday.
Echoing those concerns were several Republicans and Democrats who warned
of potential government spying on its citizens with the help of employers.
"In an effort to foster information sharing, this bill would erode the
privacy protections of every single American using the internet. It
would create a 'wild west' of information sharing," said Bennie Thompson
of Mississippi, the leading Democrat on the House homeland security
committee.
Republican representative Joe Barton said: "Until we protect the privacy
rights of our citizens, the solution is worse than the problem."
Countering criticism of Big Brother run amok, proponents argued that the
bill does not allow the government to monitor private networks, read
private emails or close a website. It urges companies that share data to
remove personal information.
"There is no government surveillance, none, not any in this bill,"
Rogers said.
Among the amendments the House approved was one by Republican Justin
Amash that put certain personal information off limits: library, medical
and gun sale records, tax returns and education documents.
"I don't know why the government would want to snoop through library
records or tax returns to counter the cybersecurity threat," Amash said.
The House approved his amendment by 415-0.
Trumping any privacy concerns were the national security argument,
always powerful in an election year, and Republicans' political desire
to complete a bill that would then force the Democratic-led Senate to act.
The Obama administration backs a Senate bill sponsored by senators Joe
Lieberman, an Independent, and Republican Susan Collins, that gives
homeland security the authority to establish security standards.
However, that legislation faces opposition from senior Senate Republicans.
Arizona senator John McCain, the leading Republican on the Senate armed
services committee, said during a hearing last month that the homeland
security department was "probably the most inefficient bureaucracy that
I have ever encountered" and was ill-equipped to determine how best to
secure the nation's essential infrastructure. McCain has introduced a
competing bill.
. This article was amended on Friday 27 April to correct a mistake in
the headline. It originally said the bill had been passed by the Senate.
This has been corrected.
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