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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    CISPA Passes The House With Tea Party Support

    4/27/2012 @ 4:50PM

    CISPA Passes The House With Tea Party Support

    CISPA was passed in the House largely along party lines. Why are small government advocates voting to bring more government to the internet?

    Will Obama veto CISPA? Balancing privacy and security concerns is a difficult task, and one that the bill itself fails to achieve. (via @daylife)

    CISPA, or the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing And Protection Act, passed the House yesterday. The bill is full of problematic intrusions into individual privacy and online liberty, and yet those members of the House who associate themselves with limited government were largely responsible for its passage.

    “The complete roll call shows 206 Republicans voting for the bill, 28 against,” writes reason’s Tim Cavanaugh. “Democrats went 42 to 140 in the opposite direction.”

    Of these Republicans, “47 of the 66 members of the House Tea Party Caucus” also supported the bill, notes Patrick Cahalan.

    “For those tricky with the math,” Cahalan continues, “this means 88% of the overall GOP members (casting a vote) voted yea, 23% of the Dems (casting a vote) voted yea, and 71% of the Tea Party (casting a vote) voted yea (Paul and Pence didn’t cast a vote).”

    Worse still, the bill underwent some last minute changes, which may have made CISPA even worse than in previous iterations.

    TechDirt’s Leigh Breadon points out that under the final version of CISPA 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.”


    One important thing to glean from this, especially when held up in contrast with the defeat of SOPA and PIPA, two bills aimed at combating online piracy, is that once you tack the word “security” onto a bill it becomes far more toxic to oppose.

    The Tea Party may be the small government wing of the Republican Party, but when it comes to national security suddenly limiting the state becomes far less critical. If SOPA had been billed as a cybersecurity law, it may have found a great deal more support in congress, and had a better time resisting internet backlash. For opponents of anti-piracy laws, this is an important thing to bear in mind.

    Furthermore, internet companies that recoiled at the intellectual property implications of SOPA were much more agnostic when it came to CISPA, with some actively supporting the bill. Though many civil liberties groups these companies allied themselves with in opposing SOPA were as incensed by CISPA as well, many internet companies remained largely on the sidelines.

    In other words, CISPA doesn’t threaten the bottom line of these big tech companies the way SOPA did, even if it is just as noxious for other reasons.

    “CISPA permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications without judicial oversight provided that they do so of course in the name of cybersecurity,” said Texas Republican, Ron Paul – who did not cast a vote on the bill (perhaps for political reasons.)

    And as Paul Tassi notes, CISPA is “a slippery slope, and we shouldn’t be handing the government access to our personal information, even if that personal information is in fact innocuous.”

    So why does a bill that lets government into some of the most private areas of our personal lives garner such support among self-avowed small government conservatives?

    National security has become the last bastion of big government on the right, even within the more libertarian-leaning Tea Party caucus. Bastiat’s Broken Window Fallacy only applies to stimulus spending, not to military spending. And big government intrusions into privacy in the name of national security are justified even when they grow government in deeply troubling ways.

    If there is a silver-lining it may be the fact that the Obama administration has threatened a veto.

    “The White House came out Wednesday with a strongly-worded statement slamming CISPA and pushing its regulatory approach in a threat to veto CISPA, writing that “cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive” and calling CISPA an intelligence bill rather than a security bill that treats civilians as subjects of surveillance,” writes Forbes cybersecurity expert, Andy Greenberg.

    But as Greenberg notes, the Obama administration also threatened a veto of the National Defense Authorization Act – a veto Obama failed to deliver.

    The passage of CISPA is timely. As the NSA continues construction on its biggest spy center in the Utah desert, the laws needed to fully utilize that technology haven’t caught up yet.

    “The National Security Act of 1947 – to which CISPA is a proposed amendment – doesn’t reference acts of cybercrime,” Fidelis Security Systems CEO, Peter George told me. “Today, cybercrime is a very real threat to our national security and the law needs to evolve to provide adequate protection and I personally believe we will be able to better protect ourselves through this collaboration.”

    The privacy implications of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act are serious, however. No matter how badly our security laws may need to be updated, doing so in a way that threatens the privacy of law-abiding citizens is a bridge too far. Serious discussions about cybersecurity should take place, and maybe we do need to update our cybersecurity laws to better grapple with modern-day threats.

    If anyone in our government ought to understand the dangers of big government intrusions into our personal lives, it should be the Tea Party. With a vote on the bill largely falling on party lines, however, it appears that the the promise of a truly limited government caucus in the US Congress is one that we should not pin any hopes to.

    CISPA Passes The House With Tea Party Support - Forbes
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    CISPA passes House as White House threatens veto

    Fri, 2012-04-27 09:15 AM
    By: Mark Rockwell
    Government Security News | The News Leader in Physical, IT and Homeland Security

    The House approved controversial legislation that would increase cyber threat information-sharing and communications between private industry and the government, but the White House has threatened to veto the measure and privacy groups have vowed to fight it in the Senate.

    The House of Representatives passed the Cyber Information Sharing & Protection Act, or CISPA, H.R. 3523, on a 248 to 168 vote late on April 26.

    The sponsors of the bill, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the committee’s ranking member, Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), said the bill’s passage was a first step in helping companies protect themselves from “dangerous economic predators.”

    In an April 26 statement, Rogers and Ruppersberger claimed strong bi-partisan support for the measure and pointed to support from large corporations who have been targeted by Cyber attacks. Rogers and Ruppersberger said the bill had “strong provisions built in to keep individual American’s private information private.”

    In the run up to the vote, Rogers had added language that allowed businesses that share information with the government to “minimize” personal data it passes along to exclude some details. Additionally, he said, the intelligence community’s inspector general would audit how the bill is being implemented.

    Rogers and Ruppersberger pointed to the support the measure had received from Facebook, the US Chamber of Commerce, Boeing, financial trade associations, AT&T, utilities groups, Intel, tech associations.

    The additional language, however, didn’t appease most opponents. They contend the bill allows the federal government to step beyond quashing Cyber threats. They said the way information would shared and who it was shared with could possibly violate the privacy of entities tied to that data. They said information gathered from private companies could to be used for intelligence purposes by intelligence agencies and urged a civilian agency like the Department of Homeland Security be put in charge of overseeing the data.

    Civil liberties and privacy protection groups had become more and more vocal as CISPA made its way through the House saying its language was too vague.

    As the bill came to a vote late on April 26, House Homeland Security ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said amendments authored by the Rogers and Ruppersberger to protect privacy were inadequate. He urged language be added that gives civilian agencies the lead in information sharing instead of intelligence agencies. He also wanted more restrictions on how the government could use information gathered.

    The White House -- which backs Cyber security legislation in the Senate that is says provides more privacy protection and sets up the Department of Homeland Security as the central control point for information sharing -- has threatened to veto the House bill.

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been fighting the bill over privacy concerns, condemned its passage in the House and vowed to “continue the fight in the Senate.”

    "As the Senate takes up the issue of cybersecurity in the coming weeks, civil liberties will be a central issue," said Lee Tien, EFF senior staff attorney.

    “H.R. 3523 effectively treats domestic cybersecurity as an intelligence activity and thus, significantly departs from longstanding efforts to treat the Internet and cyberspace as civilian spheres,” said a White House statement on April 25. “The Administration believes that a civilian agency – the Department of Homeland Security – must have a central role in domestic cybersecurity, including for conducting and overseeing the exchange of cybersecurity information with the private sector and with sector specific Federal agencies.”

    http://www.gsnmagazine.com/node/2621...es_legislative
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    What the frak is CISPA?


    Good way of explaining it....I can't believe it passed it needs to be stopped but no one is paying attention...all asleep at the wheel.

    here is more information I found..

    CISPA, the New Enemy of the Internet
    By VC | April 25th, 2012 | Category: Latest News | 75



    A few months ago, the proposal of an anti-piracy bill by the name of SOPA caused a great deal of controversy and protest due to the fact that it allowed the snooping of web users while opening the door to the censorship of the internet. The proposal of this law caused companies and internet giants such as AOL, Facebook and Google to openly oppose the bill – some even went as far as making their sites “go dark” for a day as a form of protest. The bill was eventually shelved and internet users rejoiced. But it was a very temporary victory. A new law is set to make the internet a highly monitored place.

    Were the anti-SOPA companies genuinely concerned about your privacy? Not really. SOPA simply went against their best interests as it placed the burden of internet surveillance on them.

    Now, a new bill by the name of CISPA will be proposed this week and its unprecise wording will make legal all kinds of abuse against privacy and free speech. Is there outrage from internet giants or are there corporate websites going black? Not at all. In fact, several companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Intel, AT&T, Verizon openly support the bill.

    “Whereas SOPA and PIPA were bad for many companies that do business on the Internet, and burdened them with the unholy task of policing the Web (or facing repercussions if they didn’t), this bill makes life easier for them; it removes regulations and the risk of getting sued for handing over our information to The Law. Not to mention doing what the bill says it’s going to do: protecting them from cyber threats.”
    - Digital Trends, CISPA is not the new SOPA: Here’s why

    With the support of big businesses, CISPA is receiving a lot less negative publicity and has a lot more chances to be adopted. It has been recently reported that the Obama administration is against CISPA – but that might not be enough to get it cancelled. Also, with elections coming soon, appearing to be against this controversial law while still having it adopted might be a simple political strategy.

    Since companies are backing the law, it is up to the people to get their voices heard. Although different than SOPA, CISPA has all of the main components to turn the internet into a cyber-police-state. Here’s a good article describing CISPA.

    As CISPA Nears A Vote, Can The Controversial Cyber-Security Legislation Be Stopped?

    As controversial cyber security legislation nears a vote in the House this week, civil liberties groups and some politicians are lining up against the bill.

    Critics of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) have likened it to previous bills, such as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that was defeated in Congress earlier this year.

    (You can read the full pdf text of CISPA here.)

    Now, opposition to CISPA is growing more widespread with each passing day as more and more internet groups join forces to push back against what is seen as a serious threat to domestic privacy laws.

    The Daily Kos has set up its own action against CISPA, and numerous groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have been at the forefront of the effort to halt what they see as a serious threat to American civil liberties.

    The ACLU has described the bill as an even more pernicious SOPA, noting that the legislation “would give the government, including military spy agencies, unprecedented powers to snoop through people’s personal information — medical records, private emails, financial information — all without a warrant, proper oversight or limits.”

    Meanwhile reddit, the site largely responsible for the groundswell of cyber-grassroots opposition to SOPA, has been overrun with discussions about this latest threat to online privacy.

    The critics have a point, writes Timothy B. Lee (not to be confused with Tim Berners-Lee) at Ars Technica.

    “CISPA is a solution in search of a problem. And it threatens to undermine important privacy protections.”

    Politicians Come Out Against CISPA

    Now, even the Obama Administration has come out against the bill, siding again with the forces of the internet against lawmakers.

    “The Obama administration opposes Cispa,” Alec Ross, a senior adviser for innovation to Hillary Clinton, told the Guardian. “The president has called for comprehensive cybersecurity legislation. There is absolutely a need for comprehensive cybersecurity legislation.

    “[But] part of what has been communicated to congressional committees is that we want legislation to come with necessary protections for individuals.”

    Ross did not comment on whether Obama would veto the bill.

    Presidential hopeful and staunch libertarian Ron Paul has come out against the legislation as well.

    “CISPA permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications without judicial oversight provided that they do so of course in the name of cybersecurity,” said the Texas Republican.

    “Simply put, CISPA encourages some of our most successful internet companies to act as government spies, sowing distrust of social media and chilling communications in one segment of the world economy where Americans still lead.”

    Critics of CISPA point out that the lawmakers responsible for bills that tinker with the internet rarely understand the technical side of the equation, whereas critics of this and earlier bills have a much stronger grasp not merely on the civil liberties aspects but on the way such bills could harm the internet itself.

    The man many credit for “inventing” the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, has also come out against the bill, noting how quickly these sorts of bills resurface in Congress.

    CISPA “is threatening the rights of people in America, and effectively rights everywhere, because what happens in America tends to affect people all over the world. Even though the SOPA and PIPA acts were stopped by huge public outcry, it’s staggering how quickly the US government has come back with a new, different, threat to the rights of its citizens,” Lee told The Guardian.

    So what is CISPA, and what does it do?

    Basically CISPA bypasses various laws that have been put in place to protect privacy. The legislation allows companies and government agencies to share “cyber threat information” with other private companies or the government “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”

    Such broad strokes are always worrisome, especially given how fast and loose the term “threat” has become in recent years. What sort of private information could be used to prevent a cyber threat?

    The Center for Democracy and Technology list four broad areas for concern:

    CISPA has a very broad, almost unlimited definition of the information that can be shared with government agencies and it supersedes all other privacy laws.
    CISPA is likely to lead to expansion of the government’s role in the monitoring of private communications.
    CISPA is likely to shift control of government cybersecurity efforts from civilian agencies to the military.
    Once the information is shared with the government, it wouldn’t have to be used for cybersecurity, but could instead be used for other purposes.

    One imagines that almost anything could potentially be helpful in preventing a cyber attack. Emails, health records, online purchases. The language in the bill is so broad and leaves so much room to maneuver, that the sharing of private information could be excused or overlooked for almost any reason.

    The truly perplexing thing about the bill is that a great deal of information is already routinely shared by companies and the government. The only difference between this information sharing and information sharing under CISPA is that there are currently safeguards in place to prevent abuse. CISPA strips those safeguards away in the name of cyber security.

    But Is It SOPA?

    Not quite, argues Ars Technica’s Tim Lee. “A better analogy is the 2008 FISA Amendment Act, which granted major telecommunications incumbents retroactive immunity for their participation in warrantless wiretapping and eliminated judicial oversight for a broad category of government surveillance.”

    CISPA simply loosens already weak protections of privacy and does so with few, if any, restraints and little oversight. In other words, it’s just another piece of the security-state puzzle we’ve been cobbling together since 9/11 which already includes domestic surveillance, the possible detention of US citizens by the military, and numerous other assaults on individual liberty and privacy.

    With SOPA, the “threat” was online piracy. With CISPA, the “threat” is much more vague. Does internet piracy itself constitute a cyber threat?

    “And whereas SOPA pitted Silicon Valley against Hollywood, CISPA seems to have the support of many technology and Web-based companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Symantec and IBM,” writes Forbes cyber-security guru Andy Greenberg.

    While SOPA raised first amendment concerns, CISPA raises concerns about privacy. Still, privacy and free speech are not exactly mutually exclusive. Loss of privacy threatens free speech, and the loss of free speech is inevitably a loss of privacy.

    The only silver lining at this point is that whereas the FAA passed during a time of political crisis, the anti-censorship forces and internet groups in opposition this time around are much better organized. The stunning defeat of SOPA and PIPA earlier this year illustrate just how far these groups, and the social media tools they wield, have come in a short span of time.

    The Man Leading The CISPA Charge

    The architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, along with his Democratic co-sponsor Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger of Maryland.

    Despite the growing opposition to the bill, Rogers remains confident of its passage.

    “I feel pretty confident that we’ll close out the bill,” Rogers told Talking Points Memo. “There is a strong chance that the bill will be passed [by the House this] week.”

    While Rogers is stubbornly pursuing the bill in the face of White House opposition and the rising tide of anti-CISPA voices across the internet, he does say he’s willing to make changes.

    “We’re open to change this bill right up until it comes to the House floor based on external input,” he told TPM.

    What sort of changes remains unclear, but critics of CISPA should take this as a sign that mounting pressure could still have an affect on the bill, possibly leading to revised and more constrained language. Even so, the legislation does little to counter actual cyber threats, while opening the floodgates to all sorts of privacy concerns.

    Time is running out for opponents of the bill.

    Debate in the House will begin this Thursday, and a vote is scheduled for Friday. There are alternatives to the Rogers bill, such as a bill proposed by Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA), that are less invasive and present a more careful, balanced, and targeted approach to cyber threats.

    Cyber security is a legitimate government issue, but until the government starts talking to actual cyber security and tech experts, and takes the concerns of civil liberties groups seriously, we risk giving far too much away, once again, in our quest for an ever-elusive sense of security.

    - Source: Forbes


    CISPA, the New Enemy of the Internet | The Vigilant Citizen
    Last edited by kathyet; 05-01-2012 at 12:15 PM.

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    CISPA passes the House; epic privacy battle moves to the Senate

    Monday, April 30, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes


    (NaturalNews) If you're not familiar with "Washingtonspeak" - that odd, unique variance of the English language in which words don't really mean what they are supposed to mean - you might not know that the lawmakers who wrote the new Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) aren't really too concerned about the protection aspect of the legislation, at least as it applies to the general public's concern about privacy.

    Yes, the word "protection" is in the title, but a closer examination of the language of the bill, as well as its intent, by those who know how things works on Capitol Hill, find that the only "protection" the bill offers is that afforded the federal government.

    According to a summary of the bill by the Congressional Research Service, the legislation amends "the National Security Act of 1947 to add provisions concerning cyber threat intelligence and information sharing." In particular, cyber threat intelligence is defined "as information in the possession of an element of the intelligence community directly pertaining to a vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or private entity [...]"

    What that means, essentially, is that it will be easier for the government and the private sector to share information about cyber threats, which, truthfully, is a major emerging national security problem.

    Making conditions ripe for privacy violations - again

    Trouble is, according to groups opposed to CISPA, once again citizens' privacy concerns are taking a back seat in this Information Age. And that could be one reason why the White House has threatened to veto it, should CISPA pass the Senate.

    On the one hand, business groups say the bill is necessary to make it easier for companies in the private sector to share potential cyber threat information with government security elements such as the National Security Agency.

    On the other, groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) think the law will be used as yet another tool to violate privacy rights.

    The CDT, which initially backed the legislation, pulled its support after becoming "disappointed that CISPA passed the House in such flawed form and under such a flawed process." The group said its biggest concern was that the law, as it is now written, would allow information to move "from the private sector directly to the NSA." The bill also inappropriately allows information to be applied to national security issues other than just cyber security - and therein lies the problem.

    "CISPA goes too far for little reason," says ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson, according to the Washington Post. "Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans' online privacy. As we've seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there's no going back. We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity."

    CISPA: Bypassing privacy on weakest of excuses

    The impetus of the legislation - to protect U.S. infrastructure, which is run by computer - from attack is as noble as it is necessary in these digital times. Cyber attacks on the U.S. have been mounting quickly, especially against U.S. military, industrial and corporate targets. But as usual, critics point out that the legislation isn't what it appears to be.

    "I do think there is a need for companies to get more information from the government in a timely fashion. The problem that arises with CISPA is that it does so much more than that," says Rainey Reitman, activism director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

    "It also opens the floodgates for companies to intercept communications of everyday Internet users and pass unredacted personal information to the governments," she added.

    CISPA would let companies essentially bypass current privacy laws "and pass citizens' personal data to the government even if there's a weak excuse that the information is related to cyber security purposes," says a report by PC World.

    "The government in return has said that if they get information that's unrelated to cyber security they 'may' - don't have to, but may choose to - remove some of the implications toward civil liberties. But they don't have to and there's no real guidelines on what they would have to do about it," Reitman said.

    Protecting the country from cyber attacks is imperative. Some say the cyber-equivalent of a Pearl Harbor-style attack is on the horizon.

    Fine - let's protect our electronic and digital infrastructure. But for once, let's not trample the constitutional rights of our citizens in the process.

    Sources for this article include:

    Bill Summary & Status - 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) - H.R.3523 - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

    Washington Post: Breaking News, World, US, DC News & Analysis

    Reviews and News on Tech Products, Software and Downloads | PCWorld

    Learn more: CISPA passes the House; epic privacy battle moves to the Senate

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    Richard Stallman: CISPA Nearly Abolishes People’s Right Not To Be Unreasonably Searched
    Monday, April 30, 2012 3:22


    CISPA-2


    RussiaToday

    Soon, Americans may find every private email they write could be opened, copied and inspected by government snoopers.

    The latest cyber security bill – called CISPA – has passed the House of Representatives, coming a step closer to becoming law.

    President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the act, if it goes through in the Senate. He cited civil liberty concerns as the reason for his threat.

    CISPA has raised a massive outcry with internet users and freedom activists, who say it’s a hard hit on people’s privacy. Reaction now from Dr Richard Stallman, who’s President of the Free Software Foundation. He’s in Tunis.


    Before It's News

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    Firefox creators Mozilla attack Congress; denounce CISPA

    In more than 100 cities from Washington State to the District of Columbia, protesters are orchestrating a massive country-wide demonstration on Tuesday, May 1, and their plans call for what could be the biggest event of its like in recent memory.

    Anonymous is taking its battle against CISPA to the streets. A video titled “Operation Defense. Phase II” calls on Americans to organize protests at the local offices of companies that supported the controversial bill recently adopted by the House.

    The House of Representative has passed CISPA, a bill seeking to increase the government's power to monitor private data online. Political commentator Luke Samuel says the law is directed against a nebulously-defined and imaginary threat.


    The House of Representatives has approved CISPA, a controversial bill that will give the government additional levers to monitor the Internet. But what are its chances of being passed into law, and what will it mean for Internet users?

    Congress is slated to vote this week on America's most controversial bill in waiting — the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. But now the president’s advisers say they will recommend Obama vetoes CISPA if it makes it to the White House.


    Imagine having government-approved employees embedded at Facebook, complete with federal security clearances, serving as conduits for secret information about their American customers.



    Silicon Valley’s Mozilla Corporation has tasked themselves with extinguishing a fire, and no, it’s not what you have in mind.

    Mozilla, the Mountain View, California-based developers responsible for creating the hugely successful Firefox Web browser, has issued a statement publically condemning the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. In a memo sent to Forbes’ data security department on late Tuesday, Mozilla’s privacy and public policy official explains that its newly-publicized stance is not one that encourages online cyber attacks, but merely establishes that the company is in favor of protecting the rights of its users.

    “While we wholeheartedly support a more secure Internet, CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond Internet security,” reads the statement. “The bill infringes on our privacy, includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are too broad around information misuse. We hope the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider these issues with stakeholder input before moving forward with this legislation.”

    Mozilla’s issues with CISPA mirror opposition that was voiced last week on Capitol Hill during debates over the legislation. Rep Jan Schakowsky (D Illinois) said the cybersecurity bill “still fails to adequately safeguard the privacy of Americans” and that the government needs to be able to “combat the serious threat of cyber attacks and still insure that we are protecting our computer systems and the civil liberties of Americans.”

    Jared Polis, a Democratic rep for Colorado, issued similar concerns, stating, “CISPA represents a massive government overreach in the name of security” and that “Any America that values his or her privacy should be concerned.”

    At this point, however, the US Senate is now the only Washington entity that stands between CISPA and the desk of President Barack Obama. In a hurried vote last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed the bill in its current form much to the chagrin of lawmakers like Schakowsky and Polis, essentially leaving approval from the other side of Congress the only thing that the bill needs to be brought to the White House.

    Advisers for President Obama have issued a statement on their own part insisting that the administration will recommend that the commander-in-chief vetoes the bill if it is brought to the Oval Office, although critics have already come out to call the move another example of election year pandering. The White House issued a similar statement last year regarding the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or the NDAA. Originally the Obama administration said that the president had issues over the bill’s provisions regarding the indefinite detention of American citizens, although Obama eventually inked his name to the paper on New Year’s Eve.

    This time around, condemnation is indeed present in regards to CISPA’s future, but Mozilla’s just-released memorandum could be a catalyst in bringing more critics out of the woodwork. Although opponents of CISPA have certainly come out against the bill for weeks now, Mozilla’s statement is among one of the first released by a major Internet entity. Other Silicon Valley giants such as IBM, Facebook and Microsoft still stand in favor of the bill. In recent days, it was reported that Microsoft switched stances and would formally oppose CISPA. This week, however, Digital Journal reports that a spokesperson for the company now confirms that the official Microsoft stance on CISPA is “unchanged,” returning Bill Gates’ billion-dollar corporation to the supportive side of CISPA.

    That isn’t to say, of course, that widespread opposition of CISPA is far from rampant. In the recent days since CISPA’s passing, critics have continued to speak up against the act. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, presidential hopeful Ron Paul and the American Civil Liberties Union have all taken an anti-CISPA stance, as well as the popular web forum Reddit.

    Firefox creators Mozilla attack Congress; denounce CISPA — RT

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