Why CISPA Is a Really Bad Bill

We've heard recently of CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a bill currently making its way through Congress that many are calling the latest incarnation of SOPA. Reader SolKeshNaranek points out an article at Techdirt explaining exactly why this bill is bad, and how its backers are trying to deflect criticism by using language that's different and rather vague. Quoting: "The bill defines 'cybersecurity systems' and 'cyber threat information' as anything to do with protecting a network from: '(A) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or (B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.' It's easy to see how that definition could be interpreted to include things that go way beyond network security — specifically, copyright policing systems at virtually any point along a network could easily qualify."

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why must we have overbearing, obsequious legislators whose only goals seem to be to annoy, obfuscate, and make dirty money? The power to expel a Congressman should extend to anyone in the US with at least a given number of supporters.

____________
Please.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what's worse? Some normal people actually support it. They don't even care about collateral damage. They want the so-called "criminals" stopped no matter what. Basically, as long as the copyright infringers are punished, it doesn't matter to them how many innocent people are also unfairly punished (sometimes having their internet shut off, for instance) or accused.

Some people just love collective punishment. Makes me sick.

Re:Why?

[pwizard2]

I agree. Having to wait until an election to get rid of a politician is ridiculous. The system is set up to exploit people's stupidity and forgetfulness. The politicians allegedly represent us, so we should have the power to fire them at any time, preferably in the middle of a hot-button issue like SOPA. A simple petition with X number of signatures would be a good way to do it.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Requirement: A million dollars.
Disqualification: Openly admitting that you don't believe in fairy tales.

Re:Why?

[jxander]

Problem is: with whom do we replace them?

For every Congressman you could hypothetically shitcan at a moment's notice, there are a dozen more equally corrupt politicians at the state level ready to take their place. And for every Governor, Mayor etc that gets the axe (or gets promoted into a recently vacated congressional seat) there will always be a Secretary of State, greasy lawyer, corrupt CEO, Community Organizer, or some guy named Moonbeam.

The whole process is rotten to the core, and attracts like minded people into it's ranks. I see two possible outcomes, (1) some paradigm will shift and the process will slowly gravitate back towards honesty and intelligence with law-makers genuinely giving a crap about their constituents... or (2) it will continue to worsen until the populace cannot take it anymore, at which point things should get ... interesting.

Re:Why?

[shentino]

Maybe if we could shitcan them on the spot, then the bad ones won't bother running.

Biggest reason they are corrupt as they are right now is that they have no reason to fear the voters. All they have to do is lie through their teeth during campaign season, then once they're safely in office and the only ones who can get rid of them are their fellow politicians, the wolves can safely take off their wool cloaks.

Re:Why?

[TheGratefulNet]

to take the devil's advocate/opposite view: if you can kick someone out of office instantly (or nearly) then won't they all be just living for the short term and never long? isn't this even worse than what we have now?

companies are evil, like that. investors often are, too. they want short term this and short term that. very reactive but not long-thinking.

what we have now is totally broken. but your proposal won't work, either.

I'm not sure the current structure is at all correct. rather than making small tweaks, it seems to me we need huge changes. as huge as going from linked linear lists to 2d or 3d trees.

tiered review and rotating officials with some feedback system might be nice to try. lots of watchers watching the watchers. self policing system that ensures stability (think: negative feedback amplifiers, to use a tech analogy).

there is no way the current system self-fixes. no self policing and power goes unchecked. truly, the people and their good is not being looked after. I think a lot of people agree that our system needs an overhaul, not a tune-up.

Re:Why?

[TheGratefulNet]

one step forward would be: remove money from the equation.

SERIOUSLY police the income of the bastards. don't allow them to live any better than they were before taking public office. and the same for afterwards! I'm serious about this; the money IS the corruption.

I fully believe there are people who do good things because they believe its the 'right thing to do'. but those people never make it to office (for lots of reasons). and the ones who are in office are the sociopathic types (generally, its true, with few exceptions).

remove all profit motive and ensure that even after office, there won't be any funny business. yes, that's hard to implement and the details are hard. but I bet it would take the 'bad element' out of our government, our police, our courts and we'd be able to restore trust in our 'leaders' again.

"he was playin' real good. for free."

there's none of that left in public office. that's the problem. they are all in it for the power, money, influence. remove that motive and you filter out all the badies. and then things will improve.

Re:Why?

[shentino]

It's not just that the bad ones make it, it's that the good ones don't.

Those "reasons" have a lot to do with the corporate run media among others making sure not to let anyone in that would derail the gravy train.

Re:Why?

[pwizard2]

to take the devil's advocate/opposite view: if you can kick someone out of office instantly (or nearly) then won't they all be just living for the short term and never long? isn't this even worse than what we have now?

Lots of politicians are already taking bribes and thinking in the short term. (that's why stuff like this happens) They are also stashing away favors and other goodies for the long term to ensure that someone will give them a job on some company board in the future. Like others said, they only pretend to care about us during election time. Immediately after that, we are effectively powerless again until the next election. If I call or write my grievances to a politician, they will just give me a politely worded "fuck you" response if I even get one at all.

If you fuck up badly enough on your job, you will probably get fired on the spot. If you fuck up enough times, you will eventually get fired. If you steal from your job or use company resources for your own gain, you will probably get fired if caught. Politicians steal from us all the time and we have no way to stop them. They fuck up all the time or even actively work against us and their incompetence and greed makes everyone suffer. Politicians don't have to live with that fear and they can do a lot more damage to society than practically everyone else. Not having a fail-safe system in place to remove them if they step out of line is absolutely insane. Getting one warning before being sacked is more than generous for those in public office. Finding a temporary replacement to serve out the remainder of the term is fairly simple.

Re:Why?

[trout007]

Good points.

Also you can't be a federal employee and run for partisan public office. I guess politicians don't want people that actually know how their policies work competing with them.

Re:Why?

[TheGratefulNet]

You probably meant get the money out of campaigns.

no, but I'd also like to get rid of campaigns as we know them. we have the internet now. the old ways are not working and we should try new ones. the old assumptions (that travel was slow, communication was slow and no effective way to 'poll the people' about issues) are all wrong, today. but we still have a so-called representative government that is not even close to being the voice of the people. not even close.

no, its not campain money, its ALL money that the politicians and other high public office holders end up with. one way or another, they enrichen themselves at high orders of magnitude. its just not right and its counter to what our country was setup to be.

whatever living style you had before office, you continue to have but not one penny more. and there would be watchers to ensure that some 'sunset' thing doesn't happen where you just get a delayed payout from some deed you did while in office.

yes, its hard to implement. but lots of things are hard; it does not mean we don't try them out.

dammit, anything is better than the direction we are headed in. small tweaks are not going to fix our problem.

Re:Why?

[Archangel Michael]

Fairy Tales ... Like "We're from the government and we're here to help"?

Or "This High Speed Rail project will only cost 38 Billion"?

Or "Republicans want you to get pregnant, have cancer, and eat puppies"?

Or "Democrats want you to smoke pot, have gay sex and molest children"?

The problem is, lots of people want to believe in fairy tales, including people who claim they don't. People are not rational, including the ones that claim to be. Get over it.

Re:Why?

[TheGratefulNet]

Fairy Tales, aka sky daddies.

you don't *have* to be christian (in the public's eye) but it sure helps. a lot.

otoh, if you openly admit you don't believe in sky daddies and the like, you'll never get anywhere in american public office. (heck, even in business, its a show-stopper).

also, if you appear too intelligent, that's a major turn-off to the american voting public. it makes me ashamed of my own country, when I think of that, but we all know about the anti-intellectualism that is on the rise.

Re:Why?

[Archangel Michael]

Yeah, i've seen that kind of thing, and I was avoiding it on purpose. Because, most people who pledge to never vote for a "Christian" or any other person of faith, will do exactly that come Nov. this year. Many of those will vote for Obama, and do so gladly because ... well Obama is their kind of person of faith.

I'd love to see the "Atheist Party" candidate and what kind of wackjob they'd end up with. If I had my guess, most people who claim atheism end up voting for some big government (sky daddy substitute) politician like Obama.

Me, I'm not a "Christian". I am a Libertarian, and I don't have a problem with people of faith (or lack their of) politically. My point, Atheists will mock religious people and how they vote, but then often vote for exactly the person they just mocked (like Obama). They compromise their own values in doing so.

Unless Atheists some how got the message (hidden) that Obama isn't really a Christian (or Muslim), in which case, he is pretending (lying) about it, just to get elected. What kind of values is that?

Re:Why?

[erroneus]

The problem is that what these "criminals" are doing shouldn't be criminal. The real crimes are happening because the criminals have changed the laws to do their bidding.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is to get rid of FPPS voting, which ensures that two nearly equally corrupt parties bubble to the top. Just about any other voting system gives a better way to get rid of corruption.

Re:Why?

[million_monkeys]

Requirement: A million dollars.
Disqualification: Openly admitting that you don't believe in fairy tales.

It'll likely cost more than a million dollars to successfully run for congress. In 2010, the average successful campaign for a house seat cost nearly 1.5 million. For the senate it was 9 million. ( data from: http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/stats.php?display=A&type=W&cycle=2010 )

Re:Why?

[sFurbo]

I think you have gotten this the wrong way around. In USA, quite a large proportion of the voting public claims they will not vote for a candidate simply because the candidate is atheist (the number is significantly higher than the corresponding number for Muslims). I haven't seen any numbers for the proportion of voters who would never vote for a Christian, but I don't think anybody would claim that they are significant, given the proportion of the American public who are Christians. In general, atheists don't mock people for voting for a Christian, they despair at people who think religion is the most important parameter in who to vote for.

Re:Why?

[Ihmhi]

Disqualification: Openly admitting you believe in Muslim fairy tales instead of Christian ones.

Re:Why?

[Eraesr]

The problem in the US is that people can either vote for Obama or vote for the republican alternative. It has little to do with being an atheist and (hypocritically) voting for the Christian guy. It's mostly just a choice between the bad Christian guy or the worse Christian guy. So unless you really don't care (and abstain your vote altogether), you'll end up voting for the least bad guy just to prevent the worst guy from getting into office.

Here in the Netherlands, where I live, we have a great diversity of parties. Some of those have a strong religious background, others haven't got that at all. It doesn't always make it easier to get things done if a multitude of parties are involved, but at least there's a much broader choice for the voters.

Re:Why?

[AliasMarlowe]

Scott Adams?

Perhaps you meant Douglas Adams, who died a few years ago.
Scott Adams, while witty enough in his Dilbert cartoons, is no substitute. Among other things, he believes in non-causal phenomena.

Now Dan Dennett or Robert Sapolski or Sam Harris would likely be good presidential material, at least from the governance of people perspective (if you could arm-twist them into submitting to such an ordeal). Alas, they are far too rational to be acceptable to the electorate, especially if pitted against the usual rabid fruitcake who gets elected. Anyway, they'd probably have to lie unconscionably to pass the required stupidity tests called Primaries in the US.

Re:Why?

[ravenshrike]

Exactly how many federal employees do you know that have a million dollars to blow on a political campaign?

Re:Why?

[Chewbacon]

I'm not so clear on exactly how they get to vote for their own salary adjustments. I wish I could do that at work! But go up to your congressman and say: hey, I want to pass a bill to allow the people to vote for your salaries. It won't work. "Yeah, constituent, let me get right on that after we fix the economy, healthcare, and this little energy situation."

List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[suraj.sun]

http://intelligence.house.gov/bill/cyber-intelligence-sharing-and-protection-act-2011

AT&T
Boeing
BSA
Business Roundtable
CSC
COMPTEL
CTIA - The Wireless Association
Cyber, Space & Intelligence Association
Edison Electric
EMC
Exelon
Facebook
The Financial Services Roundtable
IBM
Independent Telephone & Telecommunications Alliance
Information Technology Industry Council
Intel
Internet Security Alliance
Lockheed Martin
Microsoft
National Cable & Telecommunications Association
NDIA
Oracle
Symantec
TechAmerica
US Chamber of Commerce
US Telecom - The Broadband Association
Verizon

Re:List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[lgw]

Wow, there are several tech companies in there. Seems like they didn't hear it the last time we got upset about suppporting this kind of crap. Of course, their support may pre-date this rider, and they just don't realize yet what they're now suporting. Seems like the /. hordes might remedy that.

Re:List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[TheGratefulNet]

I looked at that list and there isn't one company I respect.

go figure!

Re:List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[IonOtter]

That list is very, very short.

Compare it to the list of interests that supported SOPA.

Found only two matches: National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and the US Chamber of Commerce. There were a few matches on the opposing side, but not many.

Now we know who the real players are in the game of controlling the government.

Re:List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[Trilkin]

Not even under the table, but I was thinking more about the scrutiny on Facebook as an organization itself and what exactly Zuckerberg is doing with all of the information his company harvests.

Re:List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[phantomfive]

What company do you respect then? I respect a lot of those companies on that list, even if I don't like them. I respect IBM, but it's a cool, remorseless respect. I used to smirk at Microsoft, but I've lately grown to respect them for their responsiveness to business needs. I respect Intel for their relentless pushing forward of manufacturing technology, their attention to quality, and their surprisingly good marketing department.

On the other hand, I have nothing but disgust for Symantec. Once a great company, now a leach without even a good product.

Re:List of Corporations Supporting CISPA

[TheRaven64]

IBM,

IBM, as in 'nobody ever got fired for abusing a monopoly' IBM?

Intel,

Intel, as in the company responsible for price fixing, dumping, and bribing companies not to use its competitor's products?

Lockheed Martin,

You mean a big part of the military industrial complex?

Oracle?

Seriously?

I love they way these people think.

[mosb1000]

It's like somewhere a bunch of congressmen and lobbyists got other and said:

"Wow, the internet has really been a force for global change. It empowers people to coordinate with each other and share information in a way never before possible. What can be do to put a stop to it?"

Sony

[Smiddi]

This comes at the same time Sony announces a $6.4 billion loss. Im sure they will blame music piracy, yet Apple is making those same billions in profit during a GFC. Can anyone see that one business model is overtaking the other? - Sony obviously cant, and have missed the bus too.

You all dont get it, this is the best bill ever.

[Harkin]

This bill amends the National Security Act of 1947 to include "(1) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or (2) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information" as "cyber threat intelligence". This is important because amending the National Security Act makes "cyber threat intelligence" a product of the intelligence community. This is important because US persons have protections under Title 50 when included within intelligence products.

Basically it would make it unlawful to collect these products against a US person without a very serious warrant. Now say AT&T decides to cooperate with the government in this bill, they would become a "certified entities" and thus as a collection partner and would be subject to restrictions. IE it would be pretty impossible for say the RIAA to subpoena the intelligence that in reality can't even be collected without a warrant and even if it was and was done with a warrant it would have to be the AG acting on it. Basically, it turns your info into intelligence which makes it a very protected thing.

In reality this bill might make it significantly harder to monitor your communications and provide much larger penalties for doing so without a sufficient warrant. Basically it would make it unlawful to collect these products against a US person without a very serious warrant. Now say AT&T decides to cooperate with the government in this bill, they would become a "certified entities" and thus as a collection partner and would be subject to restrictions. IE it would be pretty impossible for say the RIAA to subpoena the intelligence that in reality can't even be collected without a warrant and even if it was and was done with a warrant it would have to be the AG acting on it. Basically, it turns your info into intelligence which makes it a very protected thing.

In reality this bill might make it significantly harder to monitor your communications and provide much larger penalties for doing so without a sufficient warrant.

------
I am not a lawyer, I am not your lawyer, I might be a pound of chease.

Self-correcting bill?

[yotto]

So if this bill is passed, won't it, "degrade, disrupt, or destroy" the Internet? Won't it therefore become illegal?

Re:Summary is misleading.

[TedHornsby]

Then why the references to "intellectual property" in the bill?