CISPA goes to a super-quiet senate vote soon

CISPA, the cyber-security bill that passed in the House that would allow companies to “voluntarily” hand over everything the government asks for them about their clients while indemnifying them against any legal action taken by the parties whose privacy they just violated, goes to a vote in the Senate soon. Only nobody seems to know who supports and who opposes the bill. The Senate is collectively playing this one undeniably close to their chests, and the media’s pretty well dead silent on it, AGAIN.

Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) claims this bill would create a Cyber Industrial Complex, much like the military one that exists presently.

On Monday, Sen. Wyden made it clear that he was also one of many opposed to CISPA and other cybersecurity legislation, calling them, “an overreaction to a legitimate fear.”

“It is a fundamental principle of cyber-security that any network whose failure could result in loss of life or significant property should be physically isolated from the Internet,” the senator told his fellow representatives. “Unfortunately many of our critical network operators have violated this principle in order to save money or streamline operations. This sort of gross negligence should be the first target in any cyber-security program – not the privacy of individual Americans.”

Further, Sen. Wyden suggested that implementing the laws drafted under CISPA could create “a Cyber Industrial Complex” that would allow the federal government and its Big Business cohorts to profit off of the personal info of any American with an Internet connection.

And I can’t help but think he’s right. Think for a moment about all the wiretapping equipment your telecom companies have already installed for expressly this purpose, rather than shoring-up emergency communications channels. Your government is instead eliminating all those pesky warrants, and indemnifying companies against you suing them for violating your privacy. And all we have to protect us (yes, us! I’m on the internet too, and I even use many servers that exist in the States!) from undue snooping is the companies’ compliance, with zero disincentive against sharing everything, and the government’s word that they’ll limit their snooping to “cyber security threats” — ill defined though they are — and kiddie porn peddlers.

Wrapping this curtailing of your freedom in both “security” and “think of the children” at the same time! How ingenius! I bet this’ll pass, considering the House one passed with the only amendment being voted up actually making the situation worse.

And when that happens, my Facebook account will be deleted, because they co-sponsored this thing. I hope their stock keeps plummeting.

I’m not sure it isn’t already too late, but here’s stuff you can do to stop this ridiculous power-grab.

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CISPA goes to a super-quiet senate vote soon
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4 thoughts on “CISPA goes to a super-quiet senate vote soon

  1. 1

    It amazes me that the media is not all over this. There have been principled journalists who have gone to jail rather than give up the name of a confidential source. With bill like this, all communications with a source, other than face to face meetings, can be accessed without a warrant.

    The phrase “an named source” will disappear, and investigative journalism will be much more difficult.

  2. 2

    You know, it amazes me that you’ve got things up here with over 60 comments (many of them negative) and yet only one on this. Do people not care about their privacy? Or is it just easier to comment when you have something negative to say?

  3. 3

    Oh Erin. When you’re right, you’re right. This kind of issue just doesn’t seem to get the sort of traction that pointing out the latest bigot to make a public statement of bigotry does.

    I mean, this is the one with which we’ll all be screwed, but nobody seems to care.

  4. 4

    The media is owned by the people who want to take the Internet as we know it away. They are not going to cover anything CISPA-like until they get it passed and signed.

    Those covering this issue need to realize it is not really about copyright protection or privacy – it is about freedom of speech. These laws would make it easy to take down blogs like this one and mine and anyone else who writes their own Truth instead of what George Carlin calls “our owners”.

    They may think they own us – but some of us refuse to be their pawns.

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