(MintPress)— Privacy advocates are hoping to raise awareness this week about the latest cybersecurity bill, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which critics charge poses a threat to online freedom of expression. Protests over the bill are being waged as it inches closer to a vote in Congress.
The bill, which is more commonly known as CISPA, is being pushed by a handful of American lawmakers. CISPA aims to “provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes,” according to the written legislation.
However, privacy advocates, including American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are also making a push of their own.
Stop Cyber Spying Week
The EFF recently launched Stop Cyber Spying Week, and they say the goal of the movement is to “get Congress to back off of any cybersnooping legislation that sacrifices the civil liberties of Internet users,” according to a press release published on Monday, April 16 on their website.
According to the EFF, if passed, CISPA “would negate existing privacy laws and allow companies to share user data with the government without a court order.”
The EFF is hoping for an outcome similar to what happened this January when thousands of websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and others went dark to protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill and its counterpart, Protect IP Act (PIPA) – both restrictive Internet legislations.
MintPress previously reported that both of the bills were shelved and not revisited after the actions.
Beginning last week, the coalition urged the public to take part in a Twitter protest directed at their lawmakers. The group created an interactive tool, still posted on their website, for people to find their representatives and their Twitter handles and then share how CISPA’s privacy invasions would affect their day-to-day lives.
Congressional backing
Sponsored by Representatives Mike Rogers (R-MI) and C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD), CISPA has been growing support in Congress and the private sector as it marches towards a vote in the House of Representatives this week.
Rogers, who serves as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has been giving reassurances to the media that the bill will be passed by the House.
“I feel pretty confident that we’ll close out the bill,” Rogers told TPM News. “There is a strong chance that the bill will be passed [by the House this] week.”
It will then become law, if it clears the Senate and is signed by President Obama.
But critics, such as the EFF, say the legislation “sacrifices civil liberties in the name of security.”
Specifically, they charge that the measure “uses dangerously vague language to define the breadth of data that can be shared with the government, hands the reins of America’s cybersecurity defenses to the NSA, an agency with no transparency and little accountability and allows data shared with the government to be used for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity.”
White House weighs in
However, it seems the White House may share some of these concerns, as it has said that the President may not sign the legislation into law in its current form.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden told The Hill that any cybersecurity legislation should include strong privacy protections and should set mandatory security standards for critical infrastructure systems.
While CISPA encourages companies to share information about cyber threats, it has come under scrutiny because it does not have any regulations for critical infrastructure companies.
“The nation’s critical infrastructure cyber vulnerabilities will not be addressed by information sharing alone,” Hayden said, adding that “while information sharing legislation is an essential component of comprehensive legislation to address critical infrastructure risks, information sharing provisions must include robust safeguards to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens. Legislation without new authorities to address our nation’s critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, or legislation that would sacrifice the privacy of our citizens in the name of security, will not meet our nation’s urgent needs.”
Mandy Simon, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Americans to join EFF’s campaign, writing, “Every day, we all spend more and more of our lives online and share more and more of our most sensitive information. Keeping our computer systems secure is a real concern, but CISPA is absolutely the wrong answer,” she concluded.
“Our goal this week is to show exactly how invasive CISPA’s power would be,” she said, “Please stand with us, tweet with us and tell your Representatives that if cybersecurity legislation doesn’t protect your rights, it shouldn’t get passed.”
And critics say that the timing of this push towards protest couldn’t come at a better time, as “Unlike SOPA, though, CISPA has yet to garner the type of attention that was instrumental in killing that bill before Congress could approve it,” according to the Russian Times.
Additionally, Forbes a host of corporations and industry trade associations have lined up to back CISPA.
Big-name technology companies like Facebook, AT&T, Microsoft and IBM, and defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and industry associations like the CTIA, National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have all stated that the legislation is needed in order to combat a cyber threats against government and industry.
Evelyn Castillo-Bach, Founder and CEO of UmeNow, which is advertised as an ethical social network, says the measure is un-American though.
Castillo-Bach launched an Occupy Privacy campaign last week, and says that U.S. companies have an ethical responsibility to reject CISPA.
“CISPA circumvents the 4th Amendment, which gives the people the right not to be searched in their persons, houses, papers, and effects without probable cause and a search warrant. If CISPA passes as currently written, any branch of government, including the military, can be authorized to spy on Americans with impunity, sifting through people’s personal information — medical records, private emails, social network communication, financial information — all without a warrant, proper oversight or limits as long as a corporation is used as a front. CISPA is un-American. It outsources spying to American corporations. U.S. corporations have an ethical responsibility to reject CISPA,” she said.