House Passes CISPA in Surprise Vote; Opponents Will Continue to Fight in Senate

The House passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in a surprise vote late Thursday despite a veto threat from the White House and opposition from civil liberties groups that say the bill undermines existing privacy law and would allow private companies to spy on American citizens.

The House passed CISPA by a vote of 248 to 168, with votes for and against coming in from both parties. A vote was expected on Friday, but the House came to a vote soon after debating the bill. The Senate will now consider the bill.

CISPA is designed to break down barriers between the government and private business and allow for open sharing of intelligence on cyber threats, such as foreign hackers. Big tech and web firms, including Facebook, AT&T and IBM, support CISPA and hope the government will provide them more information on cyber threats.

Civil liberties and Internet freedom groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU claim the bill goes too far and would allow private companies and the government to circumvent existing privacy laws that prevent domestic spying and allow big web firms to hand over private data and information, such as emails, to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. The ACLU and the EFF say they will continue to oppose the bill in the Senate.  READ MORE

SOPA, PIPA and Now CISPA

File image, internet censorship. (photo: The Inquistir)

By Brendan Sasso, The Hill

08 April 12

nline activists who helped sink the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) earlier this year have now turned their sights to a House cybersecurity bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

In recent days, posts comparing CISPA to SOPA have received thousands of "up votes" on Web forum Reddit and have reached the front page of the popular link and discussion site.

Reddit helped rally opposition to SOPA and was one of the first major websites to declare that it would black out in protest of the anti-piracy bill. The massive Web protest, which was joined by Google and Wikipedia, caused a public outcry and forced Congress to scrap the anti-piracy bill.

Recent posts on Reddit have called CISPA the "return of SOPA," "the latest attempt by Congress to try to regulate and control the Internet" and a "draconian privacy invasion bill."

A Google search for "CISPA" now returns numerous blogs that decry the legislation as an attempt to censor the Internet. One online petition opposing the bill has already gathered more than 300,000 signatures.

But a House aide who supports CISPA said the measure has nothing to do with anti-piracy enforcement or censorship.

"There's no authority to censor or block sites in the bill," he said. "The only authority is to share information with the private sector and for them to voluntarily share it with the government. There's nothing in here that would allow you to block or shutdown a website."

CISPA, which is authored by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) and has more than 100 co-sponsors, is expected to come to the House floor for a vote during the week of April 23.

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