House once again passes controversial CISPA cybersecurity bill
The US House of Representatives has once again passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), after last year the bill was shot down in senate. CISPA is a bill arising from cybersecurity threats and provides a legal channel for companies to share information between each other and the government about hacks and threats.
Backed by some of the largest tech companies like Microsoft and Facebook last year, this time around - after the massive public outcry - those big names have backed their support. Companies like Mozilla and Reddit, along with advocacy organizations ACLU and EFF warn about CISPA being used as a pre-text for corporations to share private information about their users with the government. This would put the privacy of users at risk.
The bill passed with a bilateral push from both republicans and democrats with a final vote of 288 yeas and 127 nays. Within the democratic party there were more opposing the bill than supporting it as 92 approved it and 98 opposed it.
Democratic representative Jared Polis of Colorado, one of the most outspoken CISPA critics, argued that the bill is too vague and opens the door to searching through user data: "There are absolutely no protections with regards to what is done with this information," he said.
The bill proponents on the other hand did not shy away from even using the recent Boston Marathon bombing tragedy to make their case: "In the case of Boston they were real bombs, in this case they're digital bombs. And these digital bombs are on their way," Texas Republican Mike McCaul said.
Still, the CISPA bill needs to pass approval at Senate before becoming a law. We’ve also heard about the possibility of Obama issuing a veto. The saga about Internet freedoms and better cyberprotection continues.
source: GovTrack, House.gov
There are absolutely no protections with regards to what is done with this information
The bill proponents on the other hand did not shy away from even using the recent Boston Marathon bombing tragedy to make their case: "In the case of Boston they were real bombs, in this case they're digital bombs. And these digital bombs are on their way," Texas Republican Mike McCaul said.
Still, the CISPA bill needs to pass approval at Senate before becoming a law. We’ve also heard about the possibility of Obama issuing a veto. The saga about Internet freedoms and better cyberprotection continues.
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Things that are NOT allowed: