[Libs-Or] INFORMATION: President Called by ALA and Partners to Again Threaten Veto of Privacy-Hostile “Cybersecurity” Info Sharing Legislation Advancing in Senate

[Diedre Conkling]

http://www.districtdispatch.org/2014/07/president-asked-ala-partners-threaten-veto-privacy-hostile-cybersecurity-info-sharing-legislation-advancing-senate/

President Called by ALA and Partners to Again Threaten Veto of
Privacy-Hostile “Cybersecurity” Info Sharing Legislation Advancing in Senate
Posted on July 16, 2014
<http://www.districtdispatch.org/2014/07/president-asked-ala-partners-threaten-veto-privacy-hostile-cybersecurity-info-sharing-legislation-advancing-senate/>
by Adam Eisgrau <http://www.districtdispatch.org/author/adameisgrau/>

As recently reported
<http://www.districtdispatch.org/2014/06/dangerous-zombie-cybersecurity-legislation-lives-senate/>,
Senate Intelligence Committee “markup” and approval of the
privacy-hostile Cybersecurity
Information Sharing Act of 2014 (CISA), S. 2588
<https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2588>, was
delayed until after Congress’ brief July 4 recess . . . but not for long.
Again meeting in secret, the Committee approved a somewhat modified (but
insufficiently improved) version
<https://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/2588/text> of
the bill on July 10.

Like three other similar bills introduced in the past four  years, CISA is
intended to head off and remediate hacking and other threats to
communications and government electronic networks by authorizing private
communications companies to share evidence of those “cybersecurity threats”
with multiple arms of the federal government.  To enable and encourage such
reporting, however, it also effectively immunizes those companies against
any legal action that might be brought against them by individual customers
whose private information is disclosed without their permission.

So what’s wrong with preventing and blunting cyber-attacks?  Nothing,
*except* that CISA and its predecessors foster that laudable objective in
the most overbroad way possible without building in important, entirely
reasonable and wholly achievable safeguards for Americans’ privacy.  As
ALA’s coalition partners at the Open Technology Institute
<http://newamerica.net/sites/newamerica.net/files/profiles/attachments/UPDATED_OTI%20CISA%20Analysis_071114.pdf>
of the New America Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/06/zombie-bill-comes-back-look-senates-cybersecurity-information-sharing-act-2014>
have pointed out in new analyses of the bill, as passed by the Senate
Intelligence Committee, that CISA:

   - compels military involvement in previously civilian cybersecurity
   programs by requiring that cyberthreat information be instantly shared with
   the Department of Defense, NSA and Director of National Intelligence;
   - so broadly defines key terms like “cybersecurity purpose” and
   “cybersecurity threat” as to maximize threats to individual privacy rather
   than minimize them;
   - disturbingly authorizes the use of “countermeasures” against perceived
   threat sources;
   - makes no effort to effectively limit the amount of consumers’
   personally identifiable information swept up in companies’ threat reports;
   - permits companies to monitor their customers accounts and activities
   to a much greater extent than current law permits; and
   - gives companies that share information virtually blanket immunity for
   any harm caused their customer as a result of unjustified or excessive
   sharing, or of “countermeasures” taken against them improperly or
   erroneously.

With CISA now reportedly supported not just by the intelligence community
but by powerful interests in the banking, securities and other industries
<http://thehill.com/policy/technology/212032-privacy-fight-returns-for-cyber-bill>,
ALA and its coalition partners are concerned that it could be among the few
bills that the Senate actually takes up in the waning days of the current
(pre-August break) legislative session and the current Congress, which is
likely to adjourn not long after Labor Day until after the November 2014
mid-term elections.  Accordingly, we and our partners yesterday delivered a
letter to President Obama
<http://www.ala.org/advocacy/sites/ala.org.advocacy/files/content/privacyconfidentiality/Veto-CISA-Coalition-Ltr.pdf%20>
calling on him to publicly indicate that he will veto CISA, or any
similarly overbroad and dangerously imbalanced “cybersecurity” legislation
that fails to much more fully protect all of our personal privacy.  The
President issued such a statement in 2012
<http://www.districtdispatch.org/2014/07/president-asked-ala-partners-threaten-veto-privacy-hostile-cybersecurity-info-sharing-legislation-advancing-senate/--%20as%20he%20has%20regarding%20earlier%20bills%20-->regarding
similar legislation.

ALA and its partners will also continue, of course, to fight CISA in the
Senate and it’s entirely likely that we’ll need your help.  Sign up now
<http://www.districtdispatch.org/textalerts/> to learn what you can do when
the call comes.


http://www.districtdispatch.org/2014/07/president-asked-ala-partners-threaten-veto-privacy-hostile-cybersecurity-info-sharing-legislation-advancing-senate/

-- 
*Diedre Conkling*




*Lincoln County Library DistrictP.O. Box 2027Newport, OR 97365Phone & Fax:
541-265-3066Work email**: **diedre at lincolncolibrarydist.org*
<diedre at lincolncolibrarydist.org>
*Home email: **diedre08 at gmail.com* <diedre08 at gmail.com>

 “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change
your attitude.”―Maya Angelou
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