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<h1 itemprop="name">Cispa cybersecurity bill passed by House of
Representatives</h1>
<p itemprop="description" id="stand-first"
class="stand-first-alone">Republican-controlled House defies
Obama over legislation to prevent electronic attacks on US</p>
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<div class="contributer-full"> Associated Press in Washington
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<li class="publication"> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">guardian.co.uk</a>,
<time datetime="2012-04-27T10:12BST" pubdate="">Friday 27
April 2012 10.12 BST</time> </li>
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<div id="main-content-picture"> <img
src="cid:part4.00000405.05020808@gmail.com" alt="John
Boehner" height="276" width="460">
<div class="caption">House speaker John Boehner: 'The White
House believes the government ought to control the
internet.' Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP</div>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>On a bipartisan vote of 248-168, the Republican-controlled
House backed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection
Act (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/cispa"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on Cispa">Cispa</a>),
which would encourage companies and the federal government
to share information collected on the <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/internet"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on Internet">internet</a>
to prevent electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign
governments and terrorists.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2><br>
<a
href="http://gawker.com/5905081/the-non+geeks-guide-to-cispa-the-cybersecurity-bill-the-internet-is-freaking-out-over"></a></h2>
<p>The <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-administration"
title="More from guardian.co.uk on Obama administration">Obama
administration</a> 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.</p>
<p>The Republican House speaker, John Boehner, said the
administration's approach was misguided.</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>Faced with widespread <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/privacy" title="More
from guardian.co.uk on Privacy">privacy</a> 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.</p>
<p>The House passed the amendment by 410 votes to three.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>Echoing those concerns were several Republicans and
Democrats who warned of potential government spying on its
citizens with the help of employers.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>Republican representative Joe Barton said: "Until we
protect the privacy rights of our citizens, the solution is
worse than the problem."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"There is no government surveillance, none, not any in this
bill," Rogers said.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>"I don't know why the government would want to snoop
through library records or tax returns to counter the
cybersecurity threat," Amash said.</p>
<p>The House approved his amendment by 415-0.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>However, that legislation faces opposition from senior
Senate Republicans.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>• 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.</p>
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