CISPA Passes House Committee Vote

Cybersecurity bills and laws are on the rise. As noted in a recent article from TheHill.com, Congress is on the move to try to enact some legislation that impacts the Internet and your privacy.

CISPA - the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act - is not new. It was introduced last year and never cleared the Senate and was threatened to be vetoed by the White House if it did. Privacy advocates fought hard against it.

In this new version, there have been several amendments to try to appease companies and privacy advocates. For instance, one amendment extends liability protection from legal action to any company that complies with the law to share threat data with the government. Another amendment requires the government to strip any data of personally identifiable information. This would help to alleviate some privacy concerns and goes a step forward from the last version which initially required companies to strip that information before providing such data to the government.

Although privacy advocates have not fully supported this bill as of yet, it appears as though a few more tweaks may get them on board, or at least a chance of a vote in Congress that could lead to approval at the White House.