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CISA Surveillance Bill Hidden Inside Last Night's Budget Bill (engadget.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the one-more-thing dept.

An anonymous reader writes that the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) was inserted into the omnibus budget deal passed by the House of Representatives late last night. Engadget reports: "Last night's budget bill wasn't all about avoiding a government shutdown. Packed inside the 2,000-page bill announced by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the full text of the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015. If you'll recall, the measure passed the Senate back in October, leaving it up to the House to approve the bill that encourages businesses to share details of security breaches and cyber attacks. Despite being labeled as cybersecurity legislation, critics of CISA argue that it's a surveillance bill that would allow companies to share user info with the US government and other businesses. As TechDirt points out, this version of the bill stripped important protections that would've prevented directly sharing details with the NSA and required any personally identifying details to be removed before being shared. It also removes restrictions on how the government can use the data."

7 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Something I don't understand by gregfortune · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So say that I'm a Rep that is really trying hard to do the right thing and represent my constituent properly. This bill shows up for a vote and it's a 2000 page document. I probably read the initial version of the bill from front to back and was happy with it. Now, that 2000 page document has been modified in some interesting way right before the vote. Am I expected to read the entire thing again and just happen to notice the changes or is some kind of "diff" system widely available and used so it's easy to pick up these changes and evaluate them?

    It just seems like we read frequently about stuff being "hidden" or "snuck in." If some way to compare versions easily is available, then "hidden" is just a terrible excuse for someone not doing even a cursory review of the changes. If a way to compare versions isn't available, why the heck not?

    1. Re:Something I don't understand by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So say that I'm a Rep that is really trying hard to do the right thing and represent my constituent properly. This bill shows up for a vote and it's a 2000 page document. I probably read the initial version of the bill from front to back and was happy with it.

      There's your first problem. You don't actually read the bill. Between meetings with constituents, lobbyists, or other Reps; your committee hearings; hours long "working lunches"; working on your own legislation; and campaigning if you are up for re-election next year you are lucky if you have time to read 200 pages. If anything you read an executive summary provided to you, and chances are that summary was either written by a staffer/intern who didn't read it either or it was provided by lobbyists who "lent their expertise to" (read:wrote) the bill that your fellow Rep then introduced. That's how you get comments like Pelosi's "We have to vote for it to see what's in it" or the Republican's latest on Obamacare "It had some fundamental problems/repercussions that we couldn't see when we passed it so now we are hoping to roll it back after the next election." The system is designed so that Reps and Senators don't actually know what they are voting on, and really don't care.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  2. One important law by phorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One important law that is needed, perhaps above all others, is something to prevent jamming unrelated bills (or perhaps just multiple bills) into a single law. Sure, you'd end up with more bits and pieces, but overall they should be more easily parsed than huge bills. Of course then gov't would still actually have to read this sh**, but hey...

  3. So? Who did it? by DriveDog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When something bad happens, we normally look for the guilty party or at least a scapegoat. Now we get "was hidden". Who hid it? What individual inserted CISA into the budget bill? Why don't all the major news outlets say "Rep. Smith inserted CISA into the budget bill"?

  4. 41 states have it. 43 line-item. Rs gave Clinton by raymorris · · Score: 5, Informative

    41 states have that.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    43 states allow their governors to veto specific items in bills.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    In 1996 the Republicans gave Clinton line-item veto. The Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional, because Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution says the president either signs or vetoes the bill, not -part- of the bill. It needs to be done as a constitutional amendment.

  5. Re:And since our Legilators Rarely Read the Bills. by davester666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, a bunch of us were aware of it WAY before snowden. Of course, we were tagged with labels like "crackpot", "crazy", "delusional".

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  6. Re:And since our Legilators Rarely Read the Bills. by breech1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    In this case he really should use the one power left to a lame duck President and use the line item veto. He could strike out the CISA stuff and leave the rest of the funding intact. The question would be if he would actually do it, but we all know the answer to that is most likely no.

    Presidents do not have a line-item veto power. Presidents can only veto the entire bill, which is why Congress habitually tries to add contentious items to "must-pass" bills.