CISPA bill on cyber security passed by the US House of representatives BUT will certainly be shelved by the Senate

April 27, 2013

As per the the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) passed by the US House of Representatives recently will almost certainly be shelved by the Senate. The White House has also stated that the president won’t sign the bill. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill. The commerce representative held that the Senate committee is “working toward separate bills” to ameliorate cybersecurity, which are presently being drafted.
Why this controversy over CISPA?

Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) if becomes a law, will actually allow private sector companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc. to share the personal data of any person with the US Govt. and face no legal retaliations. Thus, Civil liberties groups have called CISPA a “privacy killer,” and “dangerously vague,” and warned that it may be in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The aim of this bill is to facilitate US Government in inquiring the cyber threats or potential cyber threats.
But, CISPA could create a ambiguity in all existent privacy laws, permitting companies to share Internet users’ data with the National Security Agency (NSA), part of the Department of Defense, and the biggest spy agency in the world and that too without any legal supervision.

Timeline:

CISPA was passed by the House of Representatives by a 248-168 vote in April 2012, but terminated in political purgatory the US Senate did not pass this bill.
The advisers of President Obama suggested him to use his veto power against the bill on the bases that it lacked privacy as well as civil liberties precautions.
In February 2013, Mike Rogers reintroduced CISPA to the House of Representatives and it was passed again by the US House of Representatives on 18 April 2013.
The commerce representative held that the Senate will almost certainly be shelve the bill and the President will NOT sign the bill.

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