Subject: House Passes Orwellian Cyber Security Bill Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:59 pm
House Passes Orwellian Cyber Security Bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a cybersecurity bill on Thursday that would allow the government and companies to share information about hacking, but which has raised privacy concerns and a veto threat from the White House.
The House approved the bill 248-168, prompting the top Republican and Democrat on the intelligence committee who sponsored it to issue a joint statement lauding the bipartisan approval.
"Economic cyber spies will have a harder time stealing American business plans and research and development as the House took the first step today by passing a cybersecurity bill that will help U.S. companies better protect themselves from dangerous economic predators," the statement said.
The legislation allows federal agencies such as theNational Security Agency, an intelligence agency that eavesdrops overseas and protects classified U.S. government computer networks, to share secret cyber threat information with American companies to help the private sector protect its networks.
Critics had raised privacy concerns that the sharing in return of "threat information" from private network operators to the government was so broad as to allow the NSA to effectively collect data on American communications, which is generally prohibited by law.
House intelligence committee chairmanMike Rogers and senior Democrat C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger said changes had been made to the legislation to strengthen privacy provisions, and that Facebook, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Boeing, AT&T and others had supported it.
"We can't stand by and do nothing as U.S. companies are hemorrhaging from the cyber looting coming from nation states like China and Russia," Rogers said.
But amendments favored by engineering experts and civil rights advocates were not adopted. The legislation would still allow the information from private companies to be used for intelligence and national security purposes, not just cybersecurity.
The House bill would essentially override "important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality, and civil liberties safeguards," the White House said in a statement Wednesday.
"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 administration also faulted the bill's grants of broad immunity from privacy and antitrust lawsuits to the private companies that share threat information with the government and with corporate competitors.
The outlook for the House legislation in the current form is uncertain. It matches up with aSenate bill introduced by Republican John McCain, but Democrats, who control the chamber, are aligned behind a broader bill authored by Senator John Rockefeller and others.
The White House strongly supports that bill, which has provisions that would allow theDepartment of Homeland Security to direct companies maintaining critical infrastructure, such as water and power utilities, to meet new standards.
TheAmerican Civil Liberties Union said the House bill would allow companies to share private information with the government without a warrant and proper oversight.
"Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans' online privacy. As we've seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there's no going back. We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity," Michelle Richardson, ACLU legislative counsel, said in a statement.
Subject: Re: House Passes Orwellian Cyber Security Bill Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:06 pm
CISPA Passes with Fourth Amendment Busting Provisions
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com April 26, 2012
Sudden action on CISPA today signals that the House was instructed to pass the legislation despite overwhelming opposition. It was rushed to the floor a day early and quickly brought to a vote with additional amendments.
Alex Jones reports on the passage of CISPA. As of this writing, the corporate media has not bothered to post a video.
“Pushing the bill through is bad enough, but what’s worse are the amendments that Rep. Ben Quayle (R – AZ) managed to get added. These amendments make CISPA infinitely worse than it already was,” writes Game Politics.
The amendments converted the supposed “cybersecurity” bill into an outright Big Brother surveillance tool that completely nullifies Fourth Amendment protection online.
From Techdirt:
Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for “cybersecurity” or “national security” purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more valid uses have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children. Cybersecurity crime is defined as any crime involving network disruption or hacking, plus any violation of the CFAA.
Basically this means CISPA can no longer be called a cybersecurity bill at all. The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a “cybersecurity crime”. Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all. Moreover, the government could do whatever it wants with the data as long as it can claim that someone was in danger of bodily harm, or that children were somehow threatened—again, notwithstanding absolutely any other law that would normally limit the government’s power.
Dirty tricks were used to pass CISPA. The legislation allows the national security state to circumvent the Constitution and allow carte blanche surveillance of the internet – from computer networks to private computers and devices to the emerging “internet of things.” Passage of CISPA is a milestone for the high-tech surveillance police state now going in place.
The traitors in Congress threw up a wilted fig leaf to cover their posteriors. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said the bill was “needed to prepare for countries like Iran and North Korea so that they don’t do something catastrophic to our networks here in America,” Politico reports, while Speaker of the House John Boehner said the legislation will protect the economy and create jobs.
Rogers’ transparent excuse was is little more than a sick joke considering the fact the U.S. and Israel unleashed the Stuxnet virus on Iran’s computer network. North Korea is a convenient culprit and its ability to attack the United States is seriously in question, especially after another failure to put a satellite in orbit, something the former Soviet Union and the United States did over half a century ago.
Following the defeat of SOPA and PIPA earlier this year, Congress was told to sell CISPA as a bulwark against terrorism. Obama has promised to veto the bill but this remains to be seen and is likely yet another trick.
In December at the last moment Obama signed the NDAA after he said he would veto it. No doubt he will perform the same parlor trick with CISPA.
Call your representatives now and strongly voice your condemnation. Also call your senator and warn him or her that there will be serious repercussions if they vote this monstrosity into law.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:59 pm