CISPA, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act, also known as HR 3523 is a cybersecurity House bill that’s already gained over 100 sponsors and is perhaps the worst of them all. It would allow companies to collect and monitor private communications and share them with the government, and anyone else. So is it really as scary as it sounds? EFF’s Trevor Timm explains.
You can find more information here.
List of corporations supporting CISPA.
With a lot of effort, Americans were able to strike down SOPA. Congress has responded by reintroducing it via several different bills, the worst being the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Under this bill, anything deemed a threat or inappropriate, will shared with the government.
CISPA would give companies the power to collect information on customers and give it to the government. A request for the information is all that would be needed.
CISPA is not solely related to cyber threats. It’s written so broadly that nearly all of your internet activity can be monitored by the government. This bill could potentially turn everything you do into a criminal offense with jail time. Considering the fact that private prisons are demanding 90% occupancy rates and we aren’t filling them up fast enough with drug criminals, we’ll have to settle for those pesky pirates who download movies and music. Besides, if they don’t pass these bills, the NSA spy center won’t have any work to do.
CDT warned months ago that the broadness of the bill was going to be a major problem for Americans.
the bill goes much further, permitting ISPs to funnel private communications and related information back to the government without adequate privacy protections and controls. The bill does not specify which agencies ISPs could disclose customer data to, but the structure and incentives in the bill raise a very real possibility that the National Security Agency or the DOD’s Cybercommand would be the primary recipient.
From the bill itself:
“Prohibits a civil or criminal cause of action against a protected entity, a self-protected entity (an entity that provides goods or services for cybersecurity purposes to itself), or a cybersecurity provider acting in good faith under the above circumstances.”
It’s amazing that this bill is considered “protection” with these types of clauses written into them. This means that surveillance can be started merely by the government or a corporation saying it needs to be, but then, if the information was wrong and did damage to an individual, there is no recourse to sue.
According to the ACLU, all four bills that have been introduced are exempt from public disclosure laws, such as the FOIA. You no longer have the right to know what they’re doing against you.
The ACLU has created a chart of the four bills and what’s happening in each one.
You can read a breakdown of the bill and be better informed about what it says.
Here is the list of corporations that support the bill.
Tell Congress not to pass this legislation. You can sign the EFF petition or contact your legislators directly.
The government’s tactics are to wear down its citizens until they are so fatigued that they let one of these bills slip by. Don’t let fatigue get to you. It is in your best interest to continue to fight these bills because the alternatives are far worse than what you think.
Al Madrigal travels to Arizona, where the powerful evidence of hearsay convinced the Tucson school board to ban Mexican-American studies programs.
In the past few days, Germany, Latvia, and Lithuania have joined other European countries in halting the controversial ACTA treaty. The Economist and the Financial times are now saying that ACTA is as good as dead.
Germany has announce that it is holding off on signing ACTA until the EU Parliament has decided on ACTA. Some believe it’s just a ploy by Germany to appease protesters and that, once the protests die down, they will sign it.
Latvia’s Economy Minister, Daniels Pavluts, has said he will stop ratification of ACTA.
Pavļuts is set to ask the Ombudsman as well as other concerned ministries to provide a detailed explanation and analysis of the ACTA and its potential impact on the Latvian legislative framework for intellectual property rights, copyright law, human rights and fundamental freedoms.
“Despite the fact that the ACTA agreement took several years to be developed, still a number of community groups have raised concern, reflecting the public distrust in the state power and its organs. Such an attitude towards the government has developed in the recent years, because of the lack of a genuine dialogue between the power and the society. Restoring this confidence is a new task for the government,” Pavluts says.
Lithuania’s Minister of Justice, Remigijus Simasius, has also condemned ACTA as unnecessary.
The essence of my comment was that certain provisions of ACTA are new to our legal system (more severe punishment, more control of internet providing services) and I do not see why those provisions are necessary.
I have also stated that our life is more and more dependent on R&D, new inventions, creativity. Existing IP protection system, however, is more about protecting the IP protection industry than a protection of inventors and authors. Current debate worldwide is a clear sign that we have to re-evaluate the existing IP rights system.
While some are saying that there will be no ACTA, there is still a chance that the European parliament will pass ACTA, forcing countries who don’t want the treaty to be bound by it. It all comes down to how the different countries interpret the Lisbon Treaty [pdf]and whether or not they think they need to follow it.
The European Union should also take note that most of the countries that are questioning ACTA are Eastern European countries who know how agreements such as ACTA can play out. They also don’t have very close ties to the United States, who are pushing hard for ACTA worldwide.
The protest map for today may be an indication of why so many politicians are finally taking a serious look at what ACTA is and what it can do.
Photo from Reuters.
