Defeated CISPA bill to be reintroduced
Despite failing earlier this year, the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) law proposal could be making its way back to the Senate, according to Mother Jones. This time around, with a new polish, Senators Dianne Feinstein (C-DA) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) are said to be on the precipice of introducing a new version of the bill, addressing some of the privacy concerns that caused it to fail this spring.
While the bill will still seek to make it easier for private companies to share information with the government about cyber threats, but to aide in the bill passing, the authors have stripped it to be narrower in scope. Analysts note that it remains unclear what the differences will be as it is still in draft form, not yet introduced.
“The goal is to allow and encourage the sharing only of information related to identifying and protecting against cyberthreats, and not the communications and commerce of Americans,” Feinstein’s office told Mother Jones.
Feinstein is well known for her support of expanding FISA and promoting open sharing of information between private companies and the government.
CISPA and the NSA
Mother Jones notes that given the recent NSA leaks, companies that originally supported CISPA (as it would grant them protections for handing over information under PRISM) may have second thoughts, especially given the conversion of so many average web users into privacy advocates.
CISPA has been called for recently by NSA Director, General Keith Alexander, who stated that there must be effective legislation in place given the increasing risk of cyberattack, but it has become widely apparent that since CISPA failed, how widely the NSA is able to access and store American citizens’ information, and an updated bill would expand the government’s abilities.
