U.S. Congress is rushing toward a vote on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing Act (CISA), a dirty deal between government spy agencies like the NSA and giants Facebook and Google. It grants big businesses and banks legal immunity to do almost anything they want with our data, in exchange for sharing our personal information with the government. CISA is a spying bill dressed up as a “cybersecurity” bill.
Senators Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr are planning a Senate vote on CISA before the end of July (2015). This will be the fifth time Congress tries to pass this bill to allow corporations to share our personal data with governments more loosely. Unlike in the past, Obama now supports CISA and has been calling for its passage.
The bill gives legal immunity to companies that share personal data with the government in the name of cyber security. In reality, the government would use the data they receive under the bill in a scheme to justify warrantless mass surveillance of domestic Internet traffic. It’s purely a surveillance bill -- nothing in it is actually designed to improve security.
The NSA and members of Congress want to pass CISA so badly, they’re using the recent hack of the Office of Personnel Management as justification for bringing this back up and rushing it through.
In reality, the OPM hack just shows that the government is not a good steward of sensitive data. The truth is that CISA could not have prevented the OPM hack, and no Senator could explain how it could have. Congress and the NSA are using irrational hysteria to try to end privacy on the Internet.
CISA won't prevent hacking. It will be used to conduct even deeper surveillance into the lives of Internet users worldwide.
Recent news reports reveal that the NSA has been pressuring their most powerful defenders in Congress to reintroduce CISA -- the Cyber Intelligence Sharing Act. This bill would allow corporations to share our private data with the government more easily, and with complete legal immunity.
- The NSA wants it badly, because it will give them more access to your data, and give companies immunity for legally shaky programs like PRISM: (read more)
- It lets the government spy on you without a warrant. (read more)
- It makes it so you can't even find out about it after the fact. (read more)
- It makes it so companies can’t be sued when they do illegal things with your data. (read more)
- It allows corporations to cyber-attack each other and individuals outside of the law. (read more)
- It makes every privacy policy on the web null and void, and violates the 4th amendment. (read more)
