Thursday, April 26, 2012

Obama Threatens to Veto Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger's Internet Snooping Bill // Advocates Condemn CISPA During Floor Debate

UPDATE: The House Republican majority rammed through CISPA tonight on a mostly party-line vote. Here's how Maryland's House delegation voted - YES: Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Rep. Andy Harris, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger // NO: Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. Donna Edwards, Rep. Steny Hoyer, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Rep. John Sarbanes. The technology bloggers at TechDirt wrote:
TECHDIRT: Up until this afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be tomorrow. Then, abruptly, it was moved up today—and the House voted in favor of its passage with a vote of 248-168. But that's not even the worst part....
The CISPA that was just approved by the House is much worse than the CISPA being discussed as recently as this morning.... The government would be able to search information it collects under CISPA for the purposes of investigating American citizens with complete immunity from all privacy protections as long as they can claim someone committed a "cybersecurity crime". Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all.

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives is engaging in a heated floor debate on Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger's Internet snooping legislation CISPA (aka HR 3523). You can watch the proceedings online. A floor vote is expected TONIGHT.

STOP #CISPA // TWEET AT BILL SPONSORS: @CALL_ME_DUTCH and @ROSCOE_BARTLETT

OPPOSITION ON THE LEFT: CISPA has been criticized by key House Democrats, and a recent veto threat by President Obama was a gamechanger in the policy dialogue. Obama cited CISPA's weak efforts to protect our online privacy. The Hill today reported on Rep. Ruppersberger's response:
THE HILL: Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.) voiced frustration Thursday with the White House's threat to veto his cybersecurity bill.

"It was like a kick in the solar plexus," Ruppersberger said, referring to an area of the abdomen....


The White House issued a veto threat on Wednesday against Ruppersberger's Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), saying the measure would undermine privacy and would fail to protect critical infrastructure....

Ruppersberger said he actually agrees with many of the White House's complaints. But he said that new regulations for critical infrastructure and tougher privacy protections will not make it through the GOP-controlled House.
"I'm in the minority, and I'm doing the best that I can," Ruppersberger said.

Notably, privacy advocates are trying to kill this bill, not pass a watered down version. We're in no rush to further erode our civil liberties. MSNBC today reported:
MSNBC: Killing CISPA is exactly what the ACLU and other civil liberty advocates have been working hard to do for the past two weeks, and they welcome the president's opposition. House speaker John Boehner, however, does not. On Thursday, Bohner rejected the administration's criticism that CISPA could lead to invasion of Americans' privacy....

The bipartisan bill allows the feds and private corporations (such as Facebook, AT&T, etc.) to share Internet information about possible attacks — cyber and otherwise — from other countries, terrorists and hackers. Critics, however, say it's also a surveillance bill, one that will decimate what remaining privacy U.S. citizens have on cellphones and the Internet, the feds unprecedented power with no judicial oversight....

"The handful of amendments are really just cosmetic changes," ACLU's Richardson said. The bill "still allows companies to decide what type and how much info to turn over to the government, the military is still empowered to collect internet records on innocent Americans, and cybersecurity info collected under this program can be used for unrelated ‘national security’ purposes."

The Obama administration's own harsh words criticized CISPA for failing to “ensure that the nation’s core critical infrastructure is protected," or provide “sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information." Hence, the veto threat....

Why CISPA proponents choose to focus on citizen surveillance over improving the nation's Internet infrastructure remains a mystery — one that might stem from our representatives' ignorance over how the Internet works....

OPPOSITION ON THE RIGHT: On the right, a swift backlash is forming against CISPA from anti-government activists like Rep. Ron Paul, the Liberty Coalition, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In Maryland, only embattled GOP Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (click to Tweet) has joined Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (click to Tweet) in co-sponsoring CISPA.



P.S. JOIN MARYLAND JUICE @ NETROOTS NATION: Connect with the Democrats' digital community at Netroots Nation in Providence, RI June 7-10th. Maryland Juice will be speaking on a panel about SOPA with the Vice President of Tumblr and a media activist from the Center for Media Justice.

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