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US Budget Bill Passes With CISA Surveillance Intact (npr.org)

Posted by Soulskill on from the raise-your-hand-if-you're-surprised dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Early on Friday, the U.S. Senate approved the 2,000 page 'omnibus' budget bill that allocated $1.15 trillion in government funding. Later in the day, President Obama signed it into law. Because the budget bill was so important, many other pieces of unrelated legislation were tacked onto it, including the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, a bill notable for giving the government increased internet surveillance powers. Civil rights activists and tech experts largely consider it a "privacy disaster," and several lawmakers voted against the budget bill solely for CISA's inclusion. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) said, "Unfortunately, this misguided cyber legislation does little to protect Americans' security, and a great deal more to threaten our privacy than the flawed Senate version. Americans demand real solutions that will protect them from foreign hackers, not knee-jerk responses that allow companies to fork over huge amounts of their customers' private data with only cursory review." Corporations in the U.S. will now have "legal immunity when sharing consumers' private data about hacks and digital breaches." The full omnibus is available online (PDF). The CISA provisions start on page 1,728.

4 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. War on Privacy by pellik · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is privacy such an enemy of the state now that they have to push it through in the budget bill? Why is ramming this through such a high priority for the Senate? Privacy used to be a second class issue. It hurts to watch our interests be so blatantly ignored by our governing body.

    1. Re:War on Privacy by Blue+Stone · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I read a rather insightful comment elsewhere saying that our securocrats have simply redefined privacy.

      Privacy is now defined as 'the state not currently looking at what information they hold on you'.

      Rather chilling, I thought.

      --
      Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
    2. Re:War on Privacy by kheldan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Is privacy such an enemy of the state now that they have to push it through in the budget bill?

      Riders on sweeping bills like the one that keeps the Federal government's doors open are SOP for our government, and has been for a long time now. Very often things literally get sneaked into it, hoping it doesn't get noticed, considering the full text of the bill is thousands of pages. It's 'high priority' for the Senate because otherwise the Federal government literally shuts down due to no funding; people literally get sent home without pay, contractors don't get paid, services to citizens stop, etc.

      ..enemy of the state..

      Yes, apparently, it is, now. Look at how the younger generation views the concept of 'privacy': they 'share' every gods-be-damned little thing on social media platforms, never really giving a single thought to who or how many people are actually able to access and use that data however they wish, and they're convinced that anyone who values 'privacy' and goes out of their way to keep their lives private are either 'too old to understand' or that they're criminals/terrorists/predators and 'have something to hide'. This (in my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, please) is due to the younger generation having been indoctrinated, from birth, to believe 'privacy is bad and selfish', and 'good people share', and Corporate America and our own government is behind it. Three-letter agencies love being able to see everything all the time, and if they had their fondest wishes, I wouldn't at all be surprised if they'd have us required to have cameras and microphones in our homes and in our vehicles, 'for our own safety', naturally, but so far pesky things like the rule of law, the Constitution, and the concept of basic human rights has kept them from doing things like that.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  2. Don't buy USA, Don't use USA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So basically any private data can be *sold* to NSA etc. for political, commercial and 'terrorist' surveillance as long as the company self declares it 'for cyber attack analysis'.

    Ask yourselve a simple question, why would a vague minor 'cyber threat' data exchange get pushed through in a budget measure if it was so innocuous? Obviously it was what we thought it was, a cover to legalize all the bulk mass warrantless surveillance shit that is still going on.

    And I say 'Sold', because several companies lobied for it, which suggest to me they've been promised money in exchange for the data. A hidden subsidy into US corps to buy their complicity in the surveillance.

    And the solution? Well don't buy USA made kit. It kinda sucks and don't use USA services where possible. Americans don't have a lot of choice, but the rest of the world has.

    In other news, we find out that UK has its own version of 'Parallel Construction', MI5 GCHQ not only spied on brits they briefed police in secret to arrest people and fake evidence trails. Now we know why they said "we briefed the police if people were innocent to let them go"... to explain all the meetings between spooks and police!