Congress Considering CISPA Amendments

First time accepted submitter casac8 writes "As Friday's House vote on CISPA nears, it appears Congress members are getting nervous. Literally millions of people around the world have signed petitions voicing their opposition, and it appears Congress has heard their concerns, as House members are considering a number of amendments aimed at limiting the negative impacts the legislation would have on Internet privacy. For instance, one amendment likely to pass would tighten the bill's language to ensure its provisions are only applied in the pursuit of legit crimes and other rare instances, rather than whenever the NSA wants to target Joe Web-user. And another would increase possible liability on the parts of companies who hand personal information over to the government."

Comments

Personal Responsibility

[DanTheStone]

I contacted my congressman to express my opposition. Anyone else?

Re:Personal Responsibility

[SomeWhiteGuy]

Done the first day I heard this was a consideration and that all of my senators and representatives are backing the bill... Let your people know that you're watching and they'll need to answer for this. Call, email, write a letter. You can't bug these people enough.

Re:Personal Responsibility

[X0563511]

Yep.

I'd like to take this opportunity to point these guys out, while we are on it. Also these.

Re:Personal Responsibility

[DanTheStone]

Constituents have different weapons than lobbyists. If enough voters in your district contact you saying they're strongly opposed to a bill, the campaign money may not be worth the sacrifice.

Re:Personal Responsibility

[cpu6502]

Just done.

"Dear congressional employee:

"I am dissatisfied with your work. You've already proved you're delinquency by passing the Patriot Act, TARP bailouts, mandatory purchase of insurance (which I don't want), support for destruction of perfectly usable cars via Cash for Clunkers, and the NDAA "Shut up, you don't get a lawyer" provision.

"So I won't be the least surprised if you pass CISPA, giving corporations authority to spy on my internet usage for the benefit of the Homeland Security, and thereby confirming my initial conjecture. I'll be campaigning against you in the fall. Please pack-up your desk and remove your belongs by the end of the year."

Signed,
Your boss,
We the people.

Re:Personal Responsibility

[TheGratefulNet]

yeah, that letter will get results.

I can't tell if you are trolling or not but if you were serious, you should have an adult proofread your text before you get yourself into trouble (so many gov trouble-maker lists, I can't keep track anymore).

seriously, there is a way to deal with critters in office; and then there is your style...

I agree with your feelings, but your methods won't accomplish what you hope.

Your Cheese?

[SuperCharlie]

What? I can not take all your cheese?..well then.. let me have this slice..for now. I'll be back soon for more. You are truly a shrewd bargainer of cheese.

Re:Your Cheese?

[cpu6502]

Last I heard Google, Microsoft, and other internet companies are supporting CISPA. Which is sad. They were the ones who helped defeat SOPA, but now they are siding with CISPA. It will likely pass.

Re:Your Cheese?

[Scareduck]

Just so. Google "is working behind the scenes" to get CISPA enacted. I wonder if that isn't because they maybe think they can exempt themselves from something by getting involved, or perhaps they were threatened elsewhere for their embarrassing (to its proponents) public opposition to SOPA. Another reason -- as explained in this Lifehacker story -- is that CISPA pushes the role of censor onto the state expressly, where SOPA would have required Google et al. to take on that task themselves, and at the behest of any copyright holder. CISPA is much broader and gives the government all sorts of powers it really shouldn't have under any rational reading of the Bill of Rights (the first and fourth amendments, particularly).

Re:Your Cheese?

[shmlco]

There's a good reason why Facebook and Microsoft and other tech companies are supporting CISPA.

You see, CISPA provides one monster carrot to those who "voluntarily" participate, and that's complete and total immunity from EVER being sued for failing to safeguard the privacy of your users.

http://www.isights.org/2012/04/cispas-good-faith-carrot-needs-no-stick.html

Hopefully a moot point

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks a veto is looming..... http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57421267-281/white-house-takes-aim-at-cispa-with-formal-veto-threat/ [cnet]

Re:Hopefully a moot point

[cpu6502]

White House also said they'd veto NDAA, but they were secretly working behind the scenes to add the 2 sentences that allow Americans to be jailed w/o trial. And then they signed the bill on New Year's Eve, rather than veto it.

As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I doubt the president's word when he says he would veto something..... especially after he went and signed the ACTA (and now refuses to let the Senate see it).

Re:Hopefully a moot point

[shmlco]

Yes, the President has threatened to veto CISPA -- in its current form. However, CISPA's primary sponsors still plan on slapping on some patches (excuse me, amendments) and to proceed towards Friday's vote.

Unfortunately, many of those amendments have their own issues. One even offers -- I kid you not -- a promise to "develop" policies and procedures that will protect individual privacy and civil liberties... after the bill is passed.

It's okay. Trust us.

More at http://www.isights.org/2012/04/president-obama-threatens-to-veto-cispa-authors-brush-off-threat.html

They need to consider the amendment...

[rastoboy29]

...of killing the damn bill.

Re:They need to consider the amendment...

[DigiShaman]

first and foremost, bureaucracy is in the business of supporting said bureaucracy. That why the Government is called "The Beast". It feeds and grows ever more in complexity and without regards to individual freedom and liberty. In theory, this can all be corrected via default sunset clauses for each bill. That alone will keep them busy without having to keep expanding the government and thus spending and what seemingly would be an exponential rate.

I said in "theory". Come election time, make your vote count. Turn that "theory" into fact.

"Free Country"

[Galestar]

If only there were an option for those who don't want to be tracked by repressive governments...

The citizenry of a "Free Country" as America claims to be should not have to resort to such measures in order to hide their day-to-day activities from their government.

Getting the foot in the door.

[Whammy666]

The amendments are an attempt to get the foot in the door with CISPA. It's likely they hope to get the basic framework of CISPA in place and then do incremental revisions to the bill over time when the attention has died down.

The best part of the proposed amendments is the supposed liability for the companies violating privacy and handing over info to the government. How'd that work out with the massive illegal NSA wiretapping? Oh that's right, everyone was granted retroactive immunity and the whistle blower got criminal prosecution for his trouble. Somehow, I seriously doubt that the privacy provisions will carry much weight or have any teeth. This bill needs to die.

Re:Getting the foot in the door.

[DNS-and-BIND]

"It is at first denied that any radical new plan exists; it is then conceded that it exists but ministers swear blind that it is not even on the political agenda; it is then noted that it might well be on the agenda but is not a serious proposition; it is later conceded that it is a serious proposition but that it will never be implemented; after that it is acknowledged that it will be implemented but in such a diluted form that it will make no difference to the lives of ordinary people; at some point it is finally recognised that it has made such a difference, but it was always known that it would and voters were told so from the outset."
-- Times editorial, published on August 28, 2002

Re:Tor

[pwizard2]

What if you ascii-armor GPG messages and paste those into emails? Only the recipient would be able to decrypt so it wouldn't matter if the message is intercepted. 4096 bit is still secure, but it's possible to generate 8192 bit or even insanely huge 11296-bit keys.

Re:Tor

[cpu6502]

Thought that Tor was outlawed by repressive governments like US (backspace, backspace) China, Iran, etc.

Ron Paul says corporations will âact as government spiesâ(TM) under CISPA. "It represents an alarming form of corporatism, as it further intertwines government with companies like Google and Facebook." LINK - http://runronpaul.com/web-media/ron-paul-corporations-will-%E2%80%98act-as-government-spies%E2%80%99-under-cispa/

Legal framework around existing spyware

[Scareduck]

A couple of points about this. First, if the recent Wired article on the under-construction Utah data center is accurate, mass spying is already underway with increasing volumes being planned. So I think it is fair to say that this is a reflection of Total Information Awareness and the post-Admiral Poindexter philosophy of spying: build it and let 'em try and take it away later. CISPA, then, is best thought of as a legal framework around existing and planned hardware buildouts. While I do not expect the Obama White House to be forthcoming with its real reasoning for threatening a veto, I presume that the real reason is that CISPA does not go far enough so far as the executive branch is concerned.

Amendment is not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Amending it is not enough - the bill needs to be thrown out completely, to deliver a strong enough message to the authors that they need to stop trying to get this sort of thing through. It's not a very big deterrent from trying it again, but it's about the best we could hope for.

Re:Tor

[Culture20]

Bzzt. Encrypt separately then paste into the webmail body.

Re:Tor

[Nerdfest]

Your average web user won't do that though. A pre-configured client that has your private key will allow it to be done automatically, which is what is will take. Well, that a a much larger number of people with keys.

Re:Tor

[shmlco]

Paul is -- I can't believe I'm saying this -- right.

CISPA provides one monster carrot to those who "voluntarily" participate in CISPA, and that's immunity from ever being sued for failing to safeguard the privacy of their users.

Have a hacker steal millions of financial records, health records, or credit card numbers, and as long as they were participating in CISPA, and sharing "threat" data, they were acting in "good faith" to secure their networks, and as such can not be sued for failing to protect their customer's personal data.

CISPA could literally save a company millions of dollars, and that's why Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and many, many more are supporters .

More at http://www.isights.org/2012/04/cispas-good-faith-carrot-needs-no-stick.html