CISPA, You Say?

Hey remember SOPA / PIPA?  Yeah?  Good times, good times.  Well it turns out that there is a new bill about to go before congress called CISPA or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. 

“CISPA… What’s that?”

There is an excellent article by Mr. Trevor Timm from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that explains the situation much more eloquently than yours truly can.  “CISPA stands for The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a cybersecurity bill written by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) (H.R. 3523). The bill purports to allow companies and the federal government to share information to prevent or defend from cyberattacks. However, the bill expressly authorizes monitoring of our private communications, and is written so broadly that it allows companies to hand over large swaths of personal information to the government with no judicial oversight—effectively creating a “cybersecurity” loophole in all existing privacy laws.  Because the bill is so hotly debated now, unofficial proposed amendments are also being circulated and the actual bill language is in flux.”

So companies and the government can exploit loopholes in privacy laws to swap personal information and private communications?  Aren’t laws already on the books to prevent something like this?  What are our lawmakers doing?

Mr. Timm’s full article, Cybersecurity Bill FAQ: The Disturbing Privacy Dangers in CISPA and How To Stop It can be found here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/cybersecurity-bill-faq-disturbing-privacy-dangers-cispa-and-how-you-stop-it#what-is-cispa.

Gentle Reader, I am the occasional slacktivist and now happens to be one of those times where I encourage such behavior in others.  Check it out for yourself and (No Pressure), if you feel so inclined, sign the petition to your representatives as I have.  Our privacy is worth it.

"I fight for the Users!" - TRON