CISPA or H.R. 624: Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act is an amendment to the National Security Act of 1947.  The National Security Act of 1947 was proposed as an Act of Congress in the aftermath of World War 2 to reorganize the US military. This would include the merger of the Army, Navy and eventually the Air Force into what we now call the Department of Defense. The act also helped to establish the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council which serves to form national security policy within the executive branch.

The CISPA amendment was introduced on November 30, 2011 by U.S. Representative Michael Rogers and 111 co-sponsors. It was passed in the House of Representatives on April 26, 2012, but was not passed by the U.S. Senate. The President’s advisers took a stand against the bill, arguing it lacked confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards. The bill however, was reintroduced February 13, 2013 and has been referred to the Select Committee on Intelligence.

This bill is intentionally vague, invasive and provides for very little accountability. Under the provisions of H.R. 624 (2013), private sector entities have the power to spy on your information and are exempt from liability for using cybersecurity systems to identify or obtain said information and for any decisions made based on this information. CISPA is a violation of individuals’ privacy and another step towards a complete surveillance state.

This bill follows in the path of other hyper-surveillance bills such as SOPA, which gained a very unpopular reputation in 2012 and was eventually blocked. Like SOPA, intellectual property theft was initially listed in the bill as a possible cause for sharing Web traffic information with the government, but it was removed in later drafts. The indistinctive wording in the bill though does not exclude this as a possibility.

The Internet’s real potential

Hyper-surveillance legislation like CISPA is a step in the wrong direction. It asks that we sacrifice our privacy rights as individuals. It places a tremendous amount of power and influence in the hands or private entities and government agencies virtually without a system of checks and balances. It is a reactionary measure that won’t stop hacktivists or criminal hackers, because they have a deep understanding of information technology systems. If the goal of this bill is to bolster the security of information systems, the time would be better spent educating people about the information technologies that they use.