As the first anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden approached last week, members of the House of Representatives were debating the impact of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act in Washington.
The bipartisan proposal passed, 248-168, on Thursday, despite the predictable threat of a White House veto if it is passed in the Senate. The House bill allows for the exchange of potentially threatening data between private companies and the National Security Agency, as well as other government departments.
A separate Senate bill would focus cybersecurity efforts in the Department of Homeland Security and require companies to increase their security for critical infrastructure, such as electrical and water systems. Both bills have merit and come at a time when digital data is in increasing danger of being stolen or intercepted by enemies of the United States. It is a new battleground where no one has an accurate road map to follow. The House has taken the initiative.
The Obama administration favors oversight by civilian agencies. Forcing private businesses to increase electronic security measures could be seen as another burden imposed on corporations large and small by Washington – driving up the cost of manufacturing in many cases. The House bill would give this authority to the NSA, a nationwide agency already well equipped to implement stronger measures to safeguard vital information. But that’s the kind of government involvement that sends liberal lawmakers into a tailspin.
“Supporters – Republicans and Democrats alike – said the proposal is a reasonable compromise between the need for privacy and security,” according to the news agency The Hill. “The intelligence community has the ability to detect cyber threats, these malicious codes and viruses, before they are able to attack our networks,” said Intelligence Committee ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md. “But right now, federal law prohibits our intelligence community from sharing the classified cyber threat with the companies that will protect us that control the network, the AT&Ts, the Verizons, the Comcasts, those groups. We have the ability to give them the information to protect us,” according to The Hill.
Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., added that the bill is an “unprecedented, sweeping piece of legislation that would waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity.”
Yet supporters cooled the rhetoric by insisting that the federal government’s use of voluntarily provided information would be limited. No one argues that the line between privacy and intelligence-gathering is swizzle stick-thin. But ignoring the need to protect the country is a potentially fatal error. It is objectionable to compare the mission of CISPA to how nervous federal agencies dealt with domestic fears in the past, but that’s the tack taken Thursday on the House floor by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
“We remember our nation’s dark past. Martin Luther King Jr.’s telephone was wiretapped. His hotel room was wiretapped. His home was wiretapped. Our offices were wiretapped. Our meetings were wiretapped. And it was not just people spying on civil rights activists, but people protesting against the war in Vietnam. We didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter or email. These new tools must be protected. Today, we have a mission, a mandate, a moral obligation to protect future generations of activists and protestors,” he said to the dozen or so members of Congress present.
Mr. Lewis should remember that every average American citizen deserves just as much protection as his “future generations of activists and protestors.”
Cybersecurity is an international issue that eclipses the former threats presented by the Students for a Democratic Society, for example. In 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s network was compromised. Attackers stole six weeks of email correspondence from four employees who were focused on Asian policy and had access to all the information the Chamber of Commerce has on its 3 million members, according to the Wall Street Journal.
We cannot see the overseas individuals who would profit from acquisition of unsecure data. Congress needs to expedite an effective compromise to protect information. That’s the real “moral obligation” in Washington.
source : The Sun
The bipartisan proposal passed, 248-168, on Thursday, despite the predictable threat of a White House veto if it is passed in the Senate. The House bill allows for the exchange of potentially threatening data between private companies and the National Security Agency, as well as other government departments.
A separate Senate bill would focus cybersecurity efforts in the Department of Homeland Security and require companies to increase their security for critical infrastructure, such as electrical and water systems. Both bills have merit and come at a time when digital data is in increasing danger of being stolen or intercepted by enemies of the United States. It is a new battleground where no one has an accurate road map to follow. The House has taken the initiative.
The Obama administration favors oversight by civilian agencies. Forcing private businesses to increase electronic security measures could be seen as another burden imposed on corporations large and small by Washington – driving up the cost of manufacturing in many cases. The House bill would give this authority to the NSA, a nationwide agency already well equipped to implement stronger measures to safeguard vital information. But that’s the kind of government involvement that sends liberal lawmakers into a tailspin.
“Supporters – Republicans and Democrats alike – said the proposal is a reasonable compromise between the need for privacy and security,” according to the news agency The Hill. “The intelligence community has the ability to detect cyber threats, these malicious codes and viruses, before they are able to attack our networks,” said Intelligence Committee ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md. “But right now, federal law prohibits our intelligence community from sharing the classified cyber threat with the companies that will protect us that control the network, the AT&Ts, the Verizons, the Comcasts, those groups. We have the ability to give them the information to protect us,” according to The Hill.
Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., added that the bill is an “unprecedented, sweeping piece of legislation that would waive every single privacy law ever enacted in the name of cybersecurity.”
Yet supporters cooled the rhetoric by insisting that the federal government’s use of voluntarily provided information would be limited. No one argues that the line between privacy and intelligence-gathering is swizzle stick-thin. But ignoring the need to protect the country is a potentially fatal error. It is objectionable to compare the mission of CISPA to how nervous federal agencies dealt with domestic fears in the past, but that’s the tack taken Thursday on the House floor by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.
“We remember our nation’s dark past. Martin Luther King Jr.’s telephone was wiretapped. His hotel room was wiretapped. His home was wiretapped. Our offices were wiretapped. Our meetings were wiretapped. And it was not just people spying on civil rights activists, but people protesting against the war in Vietnam. We didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter or email. These new tools must be protected. Today, we have a mission, a mandate, a moral obligation to protect future generations of activists and protestors,” he said to the dozen or so members of Congress present.
Mr. Lewis should remember that every average American citizen deserves just as much protection as his “future generations of activists and protestors.”
Cybersecurity is an international issue that eclipses the former threats presented by the Students for a Democratic Society, for example. In 2010, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s network was compromised. Attackers stole six weeks of email correspondence from four employees who were focused on Asian policy and had access to all the information the Chamber of Commerce has on its 3 million members, according to the Wall Street Journal.
We cannot see the overseas individuals who would profit from acquisition of unsecure data. Congress needs to expedite an effective compromise to protect information. That’s the real “moral obligation” in Washington.
source : The Sun