After a year of distractions, the Senate has managed to get the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (‘CISA’) out of committee and is preparing to pass it this week.
CISA aggressively expands government surveillance powers on the internet and encourages corporate compliance in government spying with bribes and bullying, broad immunity clauses for companies, and vague definitions of key terms. It makes Facebook, Google and your ISP do the government’s dirty work for them, collecting your data and sharing it with the NSA and FBI, all without a search warrant or any due process of law.
The #StopCISA campaign is encouraging people to send faxes to their Senators this week to express their concerns with the bill and stop it from being rushed through in early August.
According to the ACLU:
“The bill would create a massive loophole in our existing privacy laws by allowing the government to ask companies for ‘voluntary’ cooperation in sharing information, including the content of our communications, for cybersecurity purposes. But the definition they are using for the so-called ‘cybersecurity information’ is so broad it could sweep up huge amounts of innocent Americans’ personal data.”
We know from past experience the chilling effect which these ‘voluntary’ government programs have. Companies feel threatened and become overly cooperative and your data becomes incredibly vulnerable. This allows the government to get away with gross violations of your privacy and security without any search warrant or due process of law.
The government is not protecting your interests. They should be writing laws to provide additional security for your online communications, making clear that the 4th amendment applies online, not building loopholes to stop whistleblowers.
The Obama administration is not our friend on this so we need to stop it dead in the House. The ACLU points out that “The Obama Administration has brought more ‘leaks’ prosecutions against government whistleblowers and members of the press than all previous administrations combined…If misused by this or future administrations, CISA could eliminate due process protections for such investigations, which already favor the prosecution.”
We urge you to write your Senators. Use the handy tool provided by the #StopCISA campaign at http://stopcyberspying.com
