Representative Shcwartz continues with her anti-progressive voting record. The Congresswoman, along with 287 of her colleagues, voted for CISPA.
The general consensus by internet advocacy groups is that this bill will strip privacy rights for internet users, which is roughly 84% of the country.
“Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet companies and e-mail providers will be prohibited from making legally binding promises to protect your privacy, thanks to a vote this afternoon in the U.S. House of Representatives.
‘We’re disappointed that such a commonsense reform won’t even get a vote,’ Will Adams, a spokesman for Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican who co-sponsored the amendment, told CNET this evening. “When Americans sign up for service with their phone company or their Internet provider they should be entitled to the privacy protections that the companies promise them. Giving companies legal cover to break their contracts with consumers is bad policy and a disservice to the American people.”
Congress should have been able to debate the amendment this week because it would ensure Americans’ privacy rights, said Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and former Internet entrepreneur. That includes, he said, the rights of “users who have given their information to the company under the explicit assurance of the terms of use that it wouldn’t be shared.”
Boing Boing puts it like this:
CISPA is the latest Congressional proposal to do something unbelievably horrible with the Internet — this time, it’s letting US law enforcement and intelligence service raid all of your data, all the time, without letting you know, regardless of your service provider’s privacy policy, in the name of preventing “cyberattacks,” whatever they are.”
And finally, The New York Times weighs in on the issue:
“The White House on Tuesday threatened to veto a House bill that would allow private companies to share information about computer security threats with government agencies, signaling once again how difficult it is to balance civil liberties and security interests in the digital era.
“A similar bill, the Cyberintelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as Cispa, passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives last year. It, too, faced a veto threat from the Obama administration, along with outcry from civil liberties groups that feared that the government would use it to snoop on private citizens. This year, sponsors of the bill, House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a Democrat from Maryland, tweaked the language in a bid to satisfy critics. The House is expected to vote on the bill this week.
“…the American Civil Liberties Unionorganized a petition drive warning that the law could allow government surveillance over e-mail communications and location data of ordinary Internet users.”
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