On April 7th, 2012, Brendan Sasso reported for The Hill on how internet activists have turned their attention towards CISPA, a House cybersecurity bill. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Rep. Ruppersberger (D-Md.) authored CISPA a few months ago; the bill flew through committee but still hasn't made it to the floor. CISPA is similar to every other cybersecurity bill floating around in that it encourages information sharing between the private sector and U.S. government. All things considered, the bill is pretty moderate: CISPA only made it through committee because Rep. Rogers and Rep. Ruppersberger changed the bill's language so that "only information pertaining to cybersecurity and national security could be used" as opposed to private citizen's information.
For some reason, the internet just decided to turn on CISPA. The hivemind over at Reddit has begun decrying CISPA as the new SOPA. These are the same people who were behind the movement that eventually brought down SOPA. The Hill article noted that Reddit users have called CISPA "the latest attempt by Congress to try to regulate and control the Internet" and a "draconian privacy invasion bill." The blogosphere is equally incensed. They both have completely missed the point.
The problem is, CISPA ain't SOPA. It's not even close. The Hill quoted a House aide who supports CISPA: "There's no authority to censor or block sites in [CISPA] . . . The only authority is to share information with the private sector and for them to voluntarily share it with the government. There's nothing in here that would allow you to block or shutdown a website."
Nevertheless, a few privacy advocates are concerned about CISPA's information-sharing provisions. Specifically, they're concerned that an expansive reading of the provisions would lead to "companies handing over people's personal information to the government." However, CISPA only made it through committee after addressing these very same privacy concerns.
I found this article interesting because (1) the denizens of the internet have completely misunderstood CISPA and (2) their confusion might have an impact on the cybersecurity debate. Again, CISPA ain't SOPA. To say that a cybersecurity bill designed to facilitate information sharing is anything like a copyright infringement bill that blocks infringing websites is just disingenuous. Unfortunately, the same fervor that brought down SOPA could slow the passage of cybersecurity legislation in general. CISPA, the CSA, Secure IT, and the Precise Act are all susceptible to the same arguments.
The Hill made a great point: the SOPA protests were so effective because they had backing from web giants like Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia. These same giants would likely back CISPA. However, I'm still worried that misplaced public opinion might slow passage of cybersecurity legislation when we need it immediately.
You can find The Hill source article here.
Leave a Reply