CISPA: The Boston Marathon bombing "Patriot Act"?
Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2013 12:45 pm
CISPA Goes to The Floor for a Vote, Privacy Amendments Blocked
April 17, 2013
Yesterday, the US House prepared for the debate on the privacy-invading "cybersecurity" bill called CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. The rules committee hearing was the last stop before the bill is voted on by the full House.
In the hearing, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) was questioned about the core problems in the bill, like the broad immunity and new corporate spying powers. In response, he characterized users who oppose CISPA as "14 year olds” tweeting in a basement.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/c ... ts-blocked" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The Boston Marathon bombing has its own "Patriot Act" lined up
April 16-17, 2013
The bombing at the Boston Marathon has provided an impetus for the passage in the House of Representatives of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which has been likened to a "Patriot Act for the Internet" by the bill's opponents. The bill, which has the strong support of House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and the ranking member, Dutch Ruppersberger (called the congressman from the National Security Agency), authorizes information technology companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, E-Bay, Amazon, Microsoft and others to share in real time massive amounts of personal data -- referred to as "cyber-threat" data in the bill -- with U.S. intelligence agencies.
The Obama White House had been under intense pressure from civil liberties groups and a few Internet companies like Mozilla to veto CISPA because of the bill's lack of privacy oversight controls. However, Boston may have changed the entire dynamic, especially if the perpetrator or perpetrators are discovered to have used the Internet to plan the bombing attack. Initial White House opposition to CISPA appears to be evaporating and the Senate, which was poised to block the bill, also appears to be having second thoughts.
In the months after 9/11, the Congress passed and President George W Bush quickly signed the USA PATRIOT Act, which emaciated many constitutional rights enshrined by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. No hearings were held on the bill and Congress was too pre-occupied with the anthrax mailings to seriously debate the bill's draconian provisions. Like CISPA, the provisions of the PATRIOT Act languished in the Department of Justice and congressional committees before 9/11 hastened its passage. The full House is expected to vote on CISPA this week amid an increase in security on Capitol Hill in the wake of the Boston bombings.
The aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings has seen a massive attack on "conspiracy" websites by the corporate media. These attacks on independent media play into the hands of CISPA supporters who argue that the personal details, including passwords, log-in data, browsing data, and financial information, on activists who use the web to spread their non-conformist messages should be stored in massive government databases for the ultimate purpose of curtailing their access to the Internet. Moreover, companies are granted liability protection from aggrieved customers who believe their privacy has been violated.
Critics of CISPA cite the new massive NSA data warehouse in Bluffdale, Utah as the ultimate repository for data gathered pursuant to CISPA. NSA insiders have told WMR that the Bluffdale facility, which is the size of two football fields, cost $2 billion, and can store a yottabyte of data (a million billion gigabytes) is designed to monitor all transactional data on the Internet, as well as all forms of messaging, including tweets, e-mail, instant messages and text messages.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20130416_1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
April 17, 2013
Yesterday, the US House prepared for the debate on the privacy-invading "cybersecurity" bill called CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. The rules committee hearing was the last stop before the bill is voted on by the full House.
In the hearing, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) was questioned about the core problems in the bill, like the broad immunity and new corporate spying powers. In response, he characterized users who oppose CISPA as "14 year olds” tweeting in a basement.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/04/c ... ts-blocked" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The Boston Marathon bombing has its own "Patriot Act" lined up
April 16-17, 2013
The bombing at the Boston Marathon has provided an impetus for the passage in the House of Representatives of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which has been likened to a "Patriot Act for the Internet" by the bill's opponents. The bill, which has the strong support of House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) and the ranking member, Dutch Ruppersberger (called the congressman from the National Security Agency), authorizes information technology companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, E-Bay, Amazon, Microsoft and others to share in real time massive amounts of personal data -- referred to as "cyber-threat" data in the bill -- with U.S. intelligence agencies.
The Obama White House had been under intense pressure from civil liberties groups and a few Internet companies like Mozilla to veto CISPA because of the bill's lack of privacy oversight controls. However, Boston may have changed the entire dynamic, especially if the perpetrator or perpetrators are discovered to have used the Internet to plan the bombing attack. Initial White House opposition to CISPA appears to be evaporating and the Senate, which was poised to block the bill, also appears to be having second thoughts.
In the months after 9/11, the Congress passed and President George W Bush quickly signed the USA PATRIOT Act, which emaciated many constitutional rights enshrined by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. No hearings were held on the bill and Congress was too pre-occupied with the anthrax mailings to seriously debate the bill's draconian provisions. Like CISPA, the provisions of the PATRIOT Act languished in the Department of Justice and congressional committees before 9/11 hastened its passage. The full House is expected to vote on CISPA this week amid an increase in security on Capitol Hill in the wake of the Boston bombings.
The aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings has seen a massive attack on "conspiracy" websites by the corporate media. These attacks on independent media play into the hands of CISPA supporters who argue that the personal details, including passwords, log-in data, browsing data, and financial information, on activists who use the web to spread their non-conformist messages should be stored in massive government databases for the ultimate purpose of curtailing their access to the Internet. Moreover, companies are granted liability protection from aggrieved customers who believe their privacy has been violated.
Critics of CISPA cite the new massive NSA data warehouse in Bluffdale, Utah as the ultimate repository for data gathered pursuant to CISPA. NSA insiders have told WMR that the Bluffdale facility, which is the size of two football fields, cost $2 billion, and can store a yottabyte of data (a million billion gigabytes) is designed to monitor all transactional data on the Internet, as well as all forms of messaging, including tweets, e-mail, instant messages and text messages.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20130416_1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;