United Against CISPA

Press

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a proposed "cyber security law" and a bi-partisan bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD) and co-sponsored by a cross section of representatives. The authors of CISPA described it as a bill "to provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities".

It has however, been often described as a predecessor of the infamous Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) which gained a lot of backlash by the public in the last two years. Indeed, the Stop CISPA petition on the Whitehouse "We the People" platform has described it instead as a bill "about information sharing. It creates broad legal exemptions that allow the government to share 'cyber threat intelligence' with private companies, and companies to share 'cyber threat information' with the government, for the purposes of enhancing cyber security. The problems arise from the definitions of these terms, especially when it comes to companies sharing data with the feds".

Our group firmly endorse the proponents of the latter argument as we believe the ambiguities in the terms of CISPA, coupled with its short oversight have several implications on our freedom and rights to privacy. It is essentially what former American Republican Ron Paul called, "an Internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight, provided, of course, that they do so in the name of cyber security". We are in support of the President of the United States proposition in his Statement of Administration Policy which claimed that "the sharing of information must be conducted in a manner that preserves Americans' privacy, data confidentiality, and civil liberties and recognises the civilian nature of cyberspace. Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive".

We are committed to a three point programme of action which encompasses a combination of active and passive activism to ensure CISPA and any other bills in the future will not threaten our fundamental human rights affirmed by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Firstly, it is crucial to develop an awareness of the implications the bill has on our liberties and we must determine based on our own rationale, whether its cost outweighs its benefits or vice versa. Secondly, the dissemination of knowledge through social media (e.g. Twitter and Facebook) and other online communities (e.g. Reddit). We encourage individuals to foster debates inside and outside the internet to seek ways we can address the "security dilemma" while ensuring our fundamental human rights - perhaps even a revised CISPA. Thirdly, activism in all forms including the placement of posters in community areas and direct confrontation with your local representative. Passive activism alone will not cause any radical change; however, the spread of ideas coupled with physical action will achieve a lot more.

As of March 2013, CISPA is currently supported by a large lobby comprising of trade groups with over 800 private companies. We, the people, must ensure Net Neutrality and act as a bulwark to these large and influential actors, and their new "clandestine" practices. Corporations should be held accountable for the mishandling of our information and bills such as CISPA should not be passed as they would simply acquit any sort of responsibility from these corporations to ensure our privacy.