back to article White House threatens veto of CISPA surveillance bill

The White House has said that the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), currently before the US House of Representatives, lacks enough privacy protections in its current form and will probably be vetoed if passed. A statement from the White House Office of Management and Budget said that, while the importance …

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  1. Someone Else Silver badge
    Holmes

    Reading between the lines

    "The bill has a lot of cheerleaders from the technology industry, with IBM, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, EMC and others sending in letters of support for the legislation, [...]"

    Should read: "The bill has a lot of cheerleaders from the technology industry, with IBM, Intel, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, EMC and others sending in letters of support for the legislation's ability to shield them from any liability whatsoever should they happily turn over any and all information about any user, regardless of whether said user's data had anything to do with 'cybersecurity' [...]."

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "probably be vetoed "

    If congress passes a bill which is 'essential for national security' I doubt very much that the White House would dare to veto it - I would expect some loose language that allows the prez to claim it seems OK.

  3. wayward4now
    Linux

    No sweat, just use stronger encryption.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Eh?

      Can't make out if you're joking... Encryption would work fine if you're doing something like backing up data to say DropBox...

      But for most other situations, you usually share unencrypted data with various websites (even if encrypted over the wire) and THAT is what people are worried this legislation will target.

      Unless you want to post encrypted posts on FaceTwit or only provide your name, address and card details to Amazon in encrypted form or only send S-MIME messages to others like you who run their own mail server...

  4. banjomike
    Unhappy

    Yeah right,...

    the veto threat will vanish after the £$£^%& gets elected.

  5. David 45

    Sense?

    From my viewpoint from across the pond, could it possibly be that someone over there (and a pretty high-ranking "someone" at that!) is actually talking some sense at last? It's about time these grand-standing technically-ignorant politicians were taken down a peg or two. When will they learn?

  6. Identity
    Mushroom

    Once again, this is bad law...

    and most people don't know its extent. One section says that "notwithstanding any other provision of law," [italics mine] companies may share information with Homeland Security, the IRS, or the National Security Agency. By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA overrides all existing federal and state laws, including ones dealing with wiretaps, educational records, medical privacy, and more. (It's so broad that the non-partisan Congressional Research Service once warned that using the term in legislation may "have unforeseen consequences for both existing and future laws.")

  7. AnonymousNow

    If you think that it's a good idea that the NSA is unleashed on the American public, please read the expose on NSA whistle-blower Thomas Drake online at the New Yorker. They are corrupted and contracting security work to themselves for personal enrichment. This will would end very very badly, all that power and the ability to crush anyone that even thinks to mention "corruption" like they did to agent Thomas Drake. The NSA's illegal wiretapping of American Citizens is almost surplusage until you consider what a corrupted agency will really do with this data, from insider trading to extortion... and just try to stand in their way.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bull

    Obama will just pretend he wants to Veto it just like the last time on the NDAA.

  9. Eduard Coli
    Gimp

    Evil empire

    They saw how AT&T was caught, guilty and made not guilty by changing the law.

    This is just an attempt to replicate that across an industry.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I have no issue with this law

    This is a reasonable means to deal with serious cyber security issues. If Obama vetos it he's likely to pay a very high price for his poor judgment.

    1. Dylan Fahey
      Gimp

      Re: I have no issue with this law

      You are clueless if you have no issue's with this law. You are probably a religious wingnut that also thinks the world is flat and only 4000 years old. Admit it.

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