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

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.

Comments

War on Privacy

[pellik]

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.

Re:War on Privacy

[Blue Stone]

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.