CISPA Dead In The Water? White House Suggests Veto
The White House has suggested that President Obama will veto the CISPA bill if it passes its upcoming House of Representatives vote.
National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson Caitlin Hayden issued the following statement:
“We believe the adopted committee amendments reflect a good faith-effort to incorporate some of the Administration’s important substantive concerns, but we do not believe these changes have addressed some outstanding fundamental priorities” and intimated that the president would veto the bill as it stands.”
Hayden further notes that the Obama administration plans to continue its work with Congress in an attempt to create stronger cybersecurity legislation. Hayden added, “we continue to believe that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the roles of civilian and intelligence agencies, and include targeted liability protections.”
As we reported on Wednesday, CISPA passed through the House Intelligence Committee after two amendments were made. The bills text has not yet been made public.
Under CISPA, the government would be able to redact personal information from cyber threat data collected by companies. Under issues of “national security,” the government could receive unredacted copies of information.
The CISPA bill is aimed to streamlining the process that currently prevents governmental and private-sector sharing of infromation about malicious source code, ongoing attacks, and other threats made over the internet.
CISPA’s ultimate goal is to create a far-reaching system that can share information in real-time. Supporters of the bill claim that it will help stop cyber and real-world attacks. Critics of the bill claim that it will give the US government unfettered access to personal information with virtually no oversight.
More than 30,000 websites have stuck together to protest the enactment of CISPA.
Do you think CISPA is going to take away personal privacy by prying into a users internet access without good reason for concern?
