CISPA: Congressperson's reply

[phillyj]

I sent a msg regarding the Cispa bill and got this reply back:

Our current patchwork cyber security policy is both antiquated and fails to ensure much needed cooperation amongst various agencies. We need to develop a 21st century policy to protect the country from cyber attacks, both in the public and private sectors. An attack could have a potentially debilitating impact on our national and economic security.

Experts in both government and the private sector agree that one of the biggest obstacles to strengthening cyber security and preventing a disruptive cyber attack is the sharing of threat information between these sectors.  That is why I supported the Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act (CISPA), which passed the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis in April. CISPA provides the government, private entities, and utilities with the legal authority to share "cyber threat intelligence."

This version of CISPA includes strengthened privacy protections. It requires the government to eliminate irrelevant personal information. To address concerns that the cyber threat data will be sent to a military entity or the National Security Agency (NSA), it directs the President to designate a civilian entity within the Department of Homeland Security to serve as the entry point for cyber threat information and an entity within the Department of Justice for cyber crimes information.

It is my hope that the bill's privacy protections will be strengthened as it makes its way through the legislative process. For example, private companies should be required to minimize personal information before sharing cyber threat info with the government or other companies.

What to make of it?

[myrkul]

What to make of it?

Form letter, your congresscritter probably was never even aware you sent the message in the first place, and wouldn't care if they did.

Al your dataz are belong to them.

[Rassah]

What to make of it?

Form letter, your congresscritter probably was never even aware you sent the message in the first place, and wouldn't care if they did.

Al your dataz are belong to them.

I wouldn't be surprised in the congresscritter was never even aware of what's actually in the bill, and what implications it will have.

[phillyj]

What to make of it?

Form letter, your congresscritter probably was never even aware you sent the message in the first place, and wouldn't care if they did.

Al your dataz are belong to them.

Well, I got 1 reply before this that was definitely a robo letter. This one is probably written up by a staffer to all the ppl who wrote on behalf on this bill.

[myrkul]

What to make of it?

Form letter, your congresscritter probably was never even aware you sent the message in the first place, and wouldn't care if they did.

Al your dataz are belong to them.

Well, I got 1 reply before this that was definitely a robo letter. This one is probably written up by a staffer to all the ppl who wrote on behalf on this bill.

Possibly the same staffer that actually read the bill.

But probably not.

[Elwar]

What to make of it?

It reads almost like criteria for a new software system presented to various agencies and before going ahead with the system they wanted to make sure they would not run into any legal problems moving forward and in exchange, a few new government positions would be created to be funded along with the new project.

Everything CISPA wants to create can sorta be done now.  Private companies can spy on you. Google can collect information on you. Facebook can collect information on you. They can sell that information to the government. The government can even tell them specifically what kind of information they are looking for and those companies can focus on those specific sets of criteria.

What the government cannot do, currently (sorta), is directly spy on you via those companies.

It is one of those...
government: "hey google, if you happen to be logging everyone's e-mail and if you were to happen upon someone talking about not paying their taxes...we would be willing to pay for that. but we're not telling you to go search for that information...*wink* *wink*"