CISPA Authors Confident Bill Will Pass Despite Rising Opposition

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich), author of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, better known as CISPA, is confident the bill has enough support in the House to pass when it comes up for a vote Friday. Rising opposition from privacy groups and concerned Internet users has not shaken his belief.

"This isn't about scrambling for votes, we're well passed that," Rep. Rogers (R-Mich.) said on a media conference call Tuesday afternoon.

CISPA is designed to allow private businesses and the government to share information about cybersecurity threats, which advocates say will increase the U.S. government's ability to fight off cyberattacks. But opponents — including civil liberties and online privacy groups — argue CISPA would destroy the notion of online privacy by allowing private firms to hand personal data over to the intelligence community.

The House Intelligence Committee released a fresh series of proposed amendments Tuesday afternoon, which Rogers said address opponents' concerns while allowing businesses to share cybersecurity information — a goal supported by companies such as Facebook and Microsoft.

Among the proposed changes are a limitation on the information that can be shared with the federal government, restrictions on what the government can do with data shared under CISPA and a set of clarified definitions — all evidence, Rogers stressed, that his team has been listening and responding to the bill's critics.

"We've gone through most of the privacy concerns expressed by privacy and civil liberties communities and by technology companies like Facebook," said Rogers. "They have been very good working with us on language to get the bill to a point that helps them protect users and protect their civil liberties."

Some of CISPA's opponents have already found a change of heart. The Center for Democracy and Technology, for example, no longer directly opposes CISPA. Instead, it's advocating for further amendments to address concerns it still has with the bill.

Others aren't on board quite yet.

The White House reiterated its distaste of the bill, which it says sacrifices individual privacy in the name of security. Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation at the State Department, told The Guardian that the administration opposes CISPA in its current form, prior to today's amendments. He wouldn't say whether President Obama would refuse to sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

Members of the House Homeland Security Committee also expressed their concerns about CISPA in a letter to Rep. Rogers and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, a co-sponsor of the bill.

"Without specific limitations, CISPA would for the first time, grant non-civilian federal agencies, such as the National Security Agency, unfettered access to information about Americans' Internet activities and allow those agencies to use that information for virtually any purpose," reads the letter.

The Daily Kos, a left-leaning political blog, has started a letter-writing campaign encouraging readers to call their representatives and tell them to vote against CISPA.

Two separate anti-CISPA threads currently sit on the front page of Reddit, where much of the early anti-SOPA activity began to coalesce. News of the Obama administration's opposition to the bill garnered almost 3,000 "upvotes" — the Reddit equivalent of Facebook's "likes" — while a CISPA explainer's got more than 2,500.

The fresh round of activity around CISPA comes after a week of protests led by Internet privacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation failed to gain the traction that the anti-Stop Online Piracy Act movement found before that bill was left to dwell in legislative limbo.

Could you tolerate an amended CISPA, or do you want to see it killed off entirely? Sound off in the comments below.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, PashaIgnatov