Despite veto threat, House passes cybersecurity bill
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which is designed to defend U.S. networks against cyber attack, passed the House 248-162.
The White House threatened to veto the legislation, saying the bill fails to protect privacy and gives a pass to companies that do not secure networks critical to the nation's security.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) dismissed the Administration's privacy concerns on Thursday.
"Listen, the White House believes the government ought to control the Internet, the government ought to set standards and the government ought to take care of everything that's needed for cybersecurity" Boehner said. "They're in a camp all by themselves because whether it's private industry, whether it's other parts of the government, understand that we can't have the government in charge of our Internet."
Under CISPA, private companies could voluntarily share cyber threat information with other companies and the federal government. In turn, the government could then share classified information on cyber threats with private companies. The participation of private companies would be voluntary.
Civil liberty groups have raised concerns. Some contend that the bill gives employers the ability to spy on employees and then share that information with the government in the name of national security.
Industry giants Google, AT&T, and Facebook have expressed support for the bill, which stand to benefit from the increased government oversight.
The Senate has its own cyber security bill sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Susan Collins (R-ME) that would give the administration the power to determine security standards for companies with networks deemed critical to the nation's cyber security. They are expected to take up the legislation next month.
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They are simply too cheap to do it on their own unless told to do it and frankly, Boehner's statement on the subject sounds like it was written for him by a lobby of corporate CEO's that don't want to spend a penny participating.
Issues concerning the cyber security of systems within the US that could effect our National Security, power generation, utilities, etc., I'd say the Govt. defiantly has an obligation to insure that those systems are not only hardened up, but monitoring their status and co-orientating and controlling their defense is very important and demands the inclusion of private industry in the matter.
What private companies are when left to themselves, is cheap that's what. You leave it to "private industry" to voluntarily set standards and enforce security, you might as well post the usernames and passwords to their accounts on the internet with instructions on how to login to the hackers.
Corporations like the House bill because it allows them to simply dump unmasked information on the government and wait for the government to solve their cybersecurity problems. And some (but not all) within the government like the additional without-a-warrant information simply because it gives them more information.
The Senate approach DOES establish requirements for corporations to protect their systems, and seems to set stricter requirements for government access to information. It sounds better, though not necessarily good enough....
Yeah, that's the intention, but the people in Government don't just do what it is intended, they abuse these tools to serve their interests. If the Government starts killing its own people, and the people are posting all sorts of information about this online, who is to say that the Government will not use CISPA to track those who posted the said information and shut them up?
It is your type of people that will help this Government become the monster we all have been fearing for a long time.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2012/roll192.xml
Of course, I'm not supporting the Democrats either, they are all corrupt, but in this case the Democrats were more concerned with the loss of our privacy than the Republicans.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of sick and tired of our Government trying to take our rights and freedoms away without my consent. We need to vote these rats out of office. As I see it, my representative did not vote, either way I'm not going to vote for him when he runs for reelection.