For the second time in a row, U.S. House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act(CISPA). Even if Obama threaten to veto CISPA because it could break civil liberties , the legislation passed it with 288-127.
According to TheVerge, Rep. Joe Heck (R-NV) said that “our nation is under attack” while Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) went beyond imagination and compared made a connection with Boston Marathon bombings: “In the case of Boston they were real bombs, in this case they’re digital bombs. And these digital bombs are on their way.” How sick is that!
Still, the most intriguing thing is that in 2013 92 democrats voted for CISPA, twice as many compared to last year when there were just 42 for it. Also in 2012 there were 140 democrats against CISPA, while in 2013 just 98. I guess they are very scared or something strange happened to them.
Just like last year version, CISPA will allow the sharing of information between companies and the government to ensure a better protection against hacks and other cyber threats. Actually this means that companies will be allowed to bypass all existing privacy laws to spy on communications and pass sensitive user data to the government, as EFF perfectly says. But can CISPA actually become a law in the U.S. ?
In my opinion it has a lot of chances, although the White House threatened to veto. CISPA latest version has some new amendments and that might convince the Senate and later Obama to sign it. Still, the Senate is controlled by democrats so it’s very hard to pass something if they don’t agree. If the Senate will make any change, CISPA goes back to the House where both chambers have to agree on a final version.
At the end of the day, Obama has the last word, so if he still thinks CISPA might break civil liberties, he will veto it once again. So, the fight for CISPA is far from being over. Over the next weeks I hope a lot of companies will take an anti-CISPA position and try once again to kill this crazy/stupid idea.
