Further, recall that the House passed its own version of an information sharing bill over the summer, so if CISA passes the Senate, it’s likely that the House will substitute its own version for it and we’ll be headed to conference and reconciliation. After debating the merits of the bill, it passed the Senate in a 74 to 21 vote.
Advertisement
CISA is created to allow companies to share information on cybersecurity threats with one another and the government. But critics say there aren’t enough safeguards in place to protect user privacy and the bill only works to serve intelligence agencies in domestic surveillance operations.
Facebook belongs to the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade association that opposes CISA.
Along the way, the Senate chose to reject a handful of common sense privacy amendments that could’ve protected that information.
The legislation fails to close a significant partnership gap and “the ongoing reluctance of government to share timely and actionable cyberthreat information and threat intelligence with the private sector”, Robert Dix, vice president of Global Government Affairs and Public Policy at Juniper Networks, recently wrote in a SIGNAL blog.
After considering the amendments, the Senate could try to pass the bill. “As an important piece of the nation’s critical infrastructure, it is vital that healthcare organizations have the tools and information they need to identify and more effectively defend against growing cyber threats”.
But privacy advocates and civil liberties groups see CISA as a free pass that allows companies to monitor users and share their information with the government without a warrant, while offering a backdoor that circumvents any laws that might protect users’ privacy. Once the bill has passed the Senate, assuming it does, it then must go to the House of Representatives.
Acknowledging opposition from privacy advocates and large technology companies, the editorial states, “The notion that there is a binary choice between privacy and security is false”. The government could do more by making it less profitable to sell stolen data, she says, adding that people can take basic online safety steps like using stronger passwords to lower their risk of exposure online.
“Just as the European Union makes it clear that the ease with which security agencies gain access to commercially held personal data is a serious problem, the US Government makes it even easier for this snooping to happen”, said Mike Weston, CEO of data science consultancy Profusion.
The Senate will convene at 10:00 am on Tuesday and consider amendments to the bill, which have been proposed by both its backers and opponents. “American businesses and government agencies face cyber-attacks on a daily basis”.
Advertisement
Zheng supports the bill and disagrees it will endanger privacy, reflecting on her past experience working on cybersecurity legislation as a staffer for Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine. “The trust of our customers means everything to us and we don’t believe security should come at the expense of their privacy”.
