CISPA 'dead' in Senate, privacy concerns cited

http://www.zdnet.com/cispa-dead-in-senate-privacy-concerns-cited-7000014536/

by microwise • 13 years ago

284 92 13 years ago

tsotha4• 13 years ago

"Undead" is more like. This thing will keep coming back under different names until it passes.

TheCapn• 13 years ago

As long as the people that wish to see it pass are around there's a group of people that don't want to see it pass fighting it. If we keep the public educated on the consequences of such bills we'll keep playing this game but hopefully gain a bit more support on each iteration.

This is one of those scenarios, as I see it, where it is as easy as supporting the groups battling on the hill and educating/informing your friends when the topic comes up over a beer or such. My girlfriend asked me yesterday about what a "Kispah" was. Once I figured out what the hell she was talking about I simply gave her the quick overview of what it was introduced for and why it is against our best interests. She knows now and can make up her own decisions on support.

ryguytilidie• 13 years ago

That is the thing though. The senators and interest groups who want this passed understand how to work around their opponents. I'd predict there will be some sort of major hacking scare and this bill will piggyback on that and pass while everyone is scared and willing to forego their rights.

prawks• 13 years ago

Mind if I ask how you explained it to her (in what I'm guessing was a relatively short time)? It seems to me that most explanations of the bill are very biased one way or another, or don't mention enough detail to be worthwhile.

jaibot3• 13 years ago

The US Legislative System is built for gridlock. Lots of things come up again and again over the decades, but passage remains unlikely - especially for an issue where the opposition is more engaged (see gun control).

rektide2• 13 years ago

No joke- Obama threatened a veto on privacy concerns and the senate punted on it- and yet:

The government is dead serious about turning every sizable company on the internet into a part of a gross-national cybersecurity infrastrucutre maintainer, and they are not going to quit until the internet has been adequately leashed by the legislative hand.

If corporations are people, this is definitely a violation of the 3rd amendment. Look it up, you probably haven't heard of it in the past couple hundred years or so.

rcthompson• 13 years ago

The 3rd amendment doesn't exist anymore. It only applies in time of peace, and we are now in an eternal global war on terror.

awj• 13 years ago

> The government is dead serious about turning every sizable company on the internet into a part of a gross-national cybersecurity infrastrucutre maintainer,

Which government? The head of the executive branch that threatened to veto such a thing over privacy concerns, or the Senate that wouldn't even give the bill the time of day (again, due to privacy concerns).

The government is a big damned huge complicated thing. Statements like "The government wants to do X" are silly simply due to the scale, even more so when two distinct pieces of "the government" are blocking the action you're asserting as their "dead serious" goal.

tzs2• 13 years ago

> If corporations are people, this is definitely a violation of the 3rd amendment.

How so? I don't see anything in either the actual CISPA nor the imaginary CISPAs that much of the internet thinks exist that would raise a 3rd Amendment issue.

tptacek• 13 years ago

'tzs is being dry, so, just so you know: the 3rd Amendment is the one that says you can't quarter soldiers in people's houses.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

Explain the third amendment bit: "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

Who exactly is suggesting we house soldiers in peoples' houses?

diminoten8• 13 years ago

I don't think you understand who's asking the government to do this.

tzs2• 13 years ago

Isn't that how it is supposed to work? There is pretty widespread agreement even among opponents of CISPA in its current form that the problems it is trying to address are real, serious, and need to be addressed, and I believe that there is even wide agreement that CISPA addresses them. The objections are that it needs some tweaking to prevent abuse (e.g., tighten up some definitions). Why should it not come back after those tweaks are made?

tomku2• 13 years ago

Some people oppose CISPA because of fixable issues regarding privacy or overly broad scope, some oppose it because they they think that it'll let the government spy on every URL they visit or allow the MPAA to take down all of Facebook for copyright infringement. According to the latter, CISPA isn't just a bad idea, it's pure malicious evil - the people supporting it need to be defeated so soundly that they never even try to bring it up again.

Unfortunately, that latter group is quite well-represented here on HN.

ubernostrum3• 13 years ago

If it were coming back "tweaked" to address the flaws of the bill, then sure, that'd be how the system is supposed to work. Except that's not what's happening and things aren't working.

The issue is that CISPA is fundamentally flawed; I have no doubt that there are well-meaning people who believe we need something to address the problems CISPA allegedly addresses. But any solution which consists of "first, we stop caring about the Fourth Amendment" is a non-starter and must always be.

rektide2• 13 years ago

I have not heard a clear case made for where current laws fall short. The existing Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has massive teeth that can be sunk into nearly anyone, and it's but one of many laws that can be used against someone.

For example, the only reason adservers & their cookie tracking escape is because they fall short of the $5000 minimum damages established in law.

One of the main CISPA focuses seems to be upon data-sharing initiatives. Yet I've heard very few examples of where cyber-law hasn't been effective & would have benefited from such federal oversight. The case has been poorly made, so I'm not sure why you're on about objections- objections are a thing that get made once someone has a case, and CISPA seems far more like something the government just wants to do than anything it's tried to justify.

rhizome• 13 years ago

That's why an online-rights law should be passed, so the offensive things that these bills try do are shut down as a matter of law.

flyinRyan• 13 years ago

It's neither. It's tabled until the Senate finishes their own CISPA like bill which will presumably be merged with CISPA before being passed.

jstalin• 13 years ago

Expect it to be introduced on a Friday night and quickly, quietly passed with no notice.

mcintyre19942• 13 years ago

Why wouldn't they have just passed it now? I mean, it might be re-introduced, but surely the idea is to deal with these concerns before doing so, or it'll just be dropped again?

tsotha4• 13 years ago

Not usually. Usually the idea is to wait until all the publicity dies down and then quietly slip it through when nobody's looking.

arjn• 13 years ago

There should be measures put in place preventing lawmakers from sneaking in questionable (or any) legislation. It is a wanton subversion of democracy to employ underhanded methods to pass unpopular laws.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

What exactly is "underhanded" about CISPA? They've got a coalation favoring it that includes companies like Google and Facebook. It's not an unpopular law, except among a small demographic of civil libertarians (and not even really among traditional civil libertarians, just the internet-focused ones). Average people don't care.

An unpopular law would be something like cutting Social Security benefits. That's something people would actually care about.

relic• 13 years ago

arjn isn't saying CISPA itself is underhanded, just that the tactics employed to push it through may be. He said CISPA was unpopular, and you can't argue that.

Karunamon• 13 years ago

Mm, I agree with this just on principle, but the problem is that not every law that needs to be passed will be popular.

(The problem with having representatives just being direct, non-autonomous proxies of their constituents is that people will vote for things that benefit them and then not vote to pay for it..)

sehugg• 13 years ago

Anyone taking a look at the Senate bill S.2102? http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s2102is/pdf/BILLS-112s...

knowaveragejoe• 13 years ago

Is this the democrat sponsored version of the bill? From what I understand, it's even worse from a privacy standpoint, but I haven't read it myself. Any insight?

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

That deflated quickly.

stefanix• 13 years ago

CISPA will come back under a different name. Here is some historic context: http://blog.ted.com/2012/01/18/defend-our-freedom-to-share-o...

tl;dr "Time Warner called, they want you back on the couch!"

snowwrestler5• 13 years ago

For those not familiar with the legislative process in the U.S., the Senate does not have to pass CISPA. They just need to pass some cybersecurity bill, which can then be conferenced together with CISPA.

Some will take this as proof that the system is broken, but the truth is that we really do need some improvements and clarifications of certain laws to help companies improve their security. If the Senate passes a bill with better privacy protections, those could survive a conference and get signed into law.

TruthElixirX• 13 years ago

> but the truth is that we really do need some improvements and clarifications of certain laws to help companies improve their security.

Oh, well, since you put together such a persuasive argument.

snowwrestler5• 13 years ago

The only people who disagree with this statement are people who are simply not informed.

What you see from groups like the ACLU, EFF, Demand Progress, etc. is opposition to the specific language in CISPA, not opposition to the concept of a cybersecurity bill in general. They did not oppose the Senate bill last year for instance.

bifrost• 13 years ago

I'm glad its dead (again) but it took a long time to kill the misnomer of "Net Neutrality", and I suspect CISPA is going to take a lot longer to go away.

drivebyacct2• 13 years ago

Thank God we have the Senate to check back for a tiny bit of the House's lunacy.

trippy_biscuits• 13 years ago

I've complied with a number of US federal requests made to a corporation that sells internet access and hosting. The requests started out as federal subpoenas detailing exact information to retrieve. Then they started to slide to unofficial requests for "everything you have" on the target and finally settled on, "please observe this account and search for anything we can use to get a subpoena." That was 10 years ago. What exactly is the victory here?

3825• 13 years ago

When you "observe this account and search for anything we can use to get a subpoena", have you not made yourself an agent of the government? You are now looking at client information on request of the government. I'd think that triggers the "unreasonable search and seizure" and could (I hope) result in a mistrial.

mpowered• 13 years ago

I will always be afraid of legislation that continues to use the term "cyber".

CISPA 'dead' in Senate, privacy concerns cited

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