Late yesterday afternoon, the White House responded to a publicly created petition on We The People regarding the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The bill has failed again (just as similar bills SOPA and PIPA last year) to make it beyond the United States Senate after passing in the House of Representatives and met intense backlash from the internet community and right-to-privacy advocate group Anonymous. The "hackivist" group called for another internet blackout last week, but far fewer websites (especially major sites) participated. However, Barack Obama openly threatened to exercise the right to veto the piece of legislation if key privacy concerns were not addressed. According to the official response, written by U.S. Chief Technology Office Todd Park and Special Assistant to the President/Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel, this year's reincarnation of the bill "includes some important improvements over previous versions," but was inadequately revised.
Organizations such as Fight for the Future are celebrating CISPA's defeat, however, are warning that the bill is inevitably going to return. "Corporate lobbyists have already spent $605 million on buying support," one correspondence says, "It's likely that the Senate will split the bill up into several smaller bills that will be harder to keep track of and rally around." This kind of forethought isn't a very farfetched concept. CISPA supporters have too much invested in the bill and seek to gain a lot from negating U.S. citizens' freedoms online in the name of national security. Fight for the Future created an infographic for people to share over social media which simplifies what is possible with a bill such as CISPA and compares it with procedures authorities need to follow to obtain internet users' personal information under currently law.
While the White House may shoot down CISPA, the petition response makes it clear there are other interests to keep in mind which would make parts of CISPA beneficial to national security. Three key points have been outlined which the President requires with a bill addressing cybersecurity: Protection of privacy and civil liberties, maintaining conventional civilian and intelligence agency roles for information sharing, and do not ensure legal protection for companies that abuse its customers' personal information.
"The essential question on which people across the spectrum disagree isn't if we can share cybersecurity information an preserve the principles of privacy and liberty that make the United States a free and open society -- but how ."
In February, Obama has issued Executive Order 13636 titled " Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity ." The order urges Congress to bolster the nation's cybersecurity without forcing companies to compromise users' information, but rather, allow government agencies to share their intelligence easier with companies. "We face growing threats from bad actors on the Internet," says the petition response, "The United States must update our cybersecurity laws, but we will not sacrifice our values in the process."
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Shaun Beacham is musician having graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA and a multidimensional journalist exclusively for Examiner. Subscribe to all of his channels and be sure to follow him on Twitter , Google+ , and other social media outlets.
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