[governance] Cispa cybersecurity bill passed by House of Representatives

[parminder]

This is merely a formalisation of the existing, and far-reaching, 
collaboration between the US gov and US digital/Internet business in the 
'national security' space. In the same way as SOPA or no SOPA, whether 
through the intervention of courts or just through executive decrees or 
'requests', a global infrastructure of collaboration between US gov and 
US Internet companies is already in place in the area of global IP 
enforcement (read economic extraction), and keeps getting strenghtened.

We see the clear and unmistakable building of a unipolar power system 
anchored in the US, whereby the architecture of the Internet (technical 
as well as socio-technical) is being shaped and put into service for 
consolidation of political, military, economic, social and cultural 
power. Does this have no implications on people's political, economic, 
social and cultural rights, individually and collectively?

What response does the civil society in IG space has to such huge 
geo-political/ -economic/ -social/ -cutural tectonics, which is shaping 
the power equations of a new world? I am sure it can do better than just 
employing its ammunition against an India, Brazil or South Africa (IBSA) 
when these countries raise alarm over the unipolar concentration of 
power in the information society employing the Internet, and seek a 
democratic global platform where these issues can be discussed and if 
needed contested.

Unfortunately, another most significant information society change is 
the emergence of a new global middle class, especially in developing 
countries, that sees their social and political identity and 
constituency as an amalgamated global rich or richness-aspirant class. 
This new class is ready to cede political leadership to the US, in 
preference to the political establishments in their home countries, even 
if they are largely or considerably democratic (at least no less than 
the US is). And this emergent class is so powerful in their 'home' 
countries that they can influence their political establishments in the 
wrong directions, often blinding them to what is manifestly happening in 
terms of consolidation of all kinds of power with and in the US, and the 
role of Internet, and Internet (non ?) governance in this process.

Just my two cents of home made theory :).

parminder



On Saturday 28 April 2012 01:08 AM, Riaz K Tayob wrote:
>
>
>   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>
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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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