Lawmakers Defend Controversial CISPA Bill

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http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Lawmakers-CISPA-Bill-Privacy-Security,21099.html

With CISPA, the U.S. government and private companies will be permitted to exchange information regarding cyberthreats. For example, should the Homeland Security become aware of a scheduled hack of Facebook, it would subsequently notify the social network. That said, the bill would also allow Facebook to notify the feds if it detected hackers on its network.

CISPA would "empower American businesses to share anonymous cyber threat information with others in the private sector and enable the private sector to share information with the government on a purely voluntary basis."

The general consensus is that CISPA would allow technology firms such as Facebook and Google to expose personal information about their users. "What constitutes 'good faith' is unclear on the face of CISPA, given its overall vagueness—which is likely to make difficult any attempt at litigating against companies," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in 2012.

CISPA had passed the House last year, but failed to make it through the Senate. The White House, meanwhile, threatened to veto it. Ruppersberger said that the administration's veto threat was made at an advanced stage of the bill, which caught him off guard. Alongside Rogers, he has been discussing a revised CISPA bill with the White House. Rogers anticipates "meaningful negotiations" with the administration.

U.S. President Barack Obama recently signed a cybersecurity executive order that allows firms to share information, while allowing federal agencies to notify private companies about cyberthreats, but it doesn't allow private companies to notify the government in order to receive protection from possible repercussions.