Ten Things To Know About CISPA

DonkeyHotey

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 248-168 vote, and now goes to the Senate.  The ostensible goal of the legislation is "to help companies beef up their defenses against hackers who steal business secrets, rob customers' financial information and wreak havoc on computer systems."  It does this by making it easier for the government and private industry to share information about cyber threats.

But it raises legitimate civil liberty concerns. The ACLU warns that the bill is "dangerously overbroad."   Reporters Without Borders notes that "the bill would negate existing privacy laws and allow companies to share user data with the government without a court order."

ThinkProgress tells us what we need to know:

CISPA’s broad language will likely give the government access to anyone’s personal information with few privacy protections: CISPA allows the government access to any “information pertaining directly to a vulnerability of, or threat to, a system or network of a government or private entity.” There is little indication of what this information could include, and what it means to be ‘pertinent’ to cyber security. Without boundaries, any internet user’s personal, private information would likely be fair game for the government.
  
It supersedes all other provisions of the law protecting privacy: As the bill is currently written, CISPA would apply “notwithstanding any other provision of law.” In other words, privacy restrictions currently in place would not apply to CISPA. As a result, companies could disclose more personal information about users than necessary. Ars Technica writes, “if a company decides that your private emails, your browsing history, your health care records, or any other information would be helpful in dealing with a ‘cyber threat,’ the company can ignore laws that would otherwise limit its disclosure.” 

The bill completely exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act: Citizens and journalists have access to most things the government does via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a key tool for increasing transparency. However, CISPA completely exempts itself from FOIA requests. The Sunlight Foundation blasted CISPA for “entirely” dismissing FOIA’s “fundamental safeguard for public oversight of government’s activities.” 

CISPA gives companies blanket immunity from future lawsuits: One of the most egregious aspects of CISPA is that it gives blanket legal immunity to any company that shares its customers’ private information. In other words, if Microsoft were to share your browsing history with the government despite your posing no security threat, you would be barred from filing a lawsuit against them. Without any legal recourse for citizens to take against corporate bad behavior, companies will be far more inclined to share private information. 

Recent revisions don’t go nearly far enough: In an attempt to specify how the government can use the information they collect, the House passed an amendment saying the data can only be used for: “1) cybersecurity; 2) investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crimes; 3) protection of individuals from the danger of death or physical injury; 4) protection of minors from physical or psychological harm; and 5) protection of the national security of the United States.” This new version still “suffers from most of the same problems that plagued the original version,” writes Timothy Lee. Because terms like “cybersecurity” are so vague, the bill’s language could encompass almost anything. 


Citizens have to trust that companies like Facebook won’t share your personal information: CISPA does not force companies share private user information with the government. That being said, Ars Technica makes the point that “the government has a variety of carrots and sticks it can use to induce private firms to share information it wants.” For instance, many companies receive federal contracts or subsidies and would be hesitant to deny any request from the government that might jeopardize future business. Companies may not be legally required to turn over information, but they “may not be in a position to say no.” 

Companies can already inform the government and each other about incoming cybersecurity threats: While proponents of CISPA claim it’s needed to allow agencies and companies to share information about incoming cybersecurity threats, opponents of the bill point out that “network administrators and security researchers at private firms have shared threat information with one another for decades.” 

The internet is fighting back: The same online activists who fought hard against SOPA are now engaged in the battle over CISPA. Over 770,000 people have signed a petition by the online organizing group Avaaz that asks Congress to defeat the bill. Reddit, the news-sharing internet community that helped lead the fight against SOPA, is organizing again around CISPA. 

Most Republicans support CISPA, while most Democrats oppose it: The House passed CISPA on April 26 on a mostly-party-line vote, 248-168. Among congressmen that voted, 88 percent of Republicans supported the bill while 77 percent of Democrats opposed it. 

President Obama threatened to veto it: Recognizing the threat to civil liberties that CISPA poses, President Obama announced this week that he “strongly opposes” the bill and has threatened to veto if it comes to his desk. Obama singled out the provisions that allow for blanket legal immunity and do not enough to safeguard citizens’ private information.

No Frothy Mix To Kick Around Anymore

“It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog.”

DonkeyHotey

Rick Santorum has suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination.  Hallelujah.

The common wisdom has been that the longer Santorum remained in the race, the better for Obama because Team Romney would have to protect its right flank with money, advertising and messaging that would otherwise be used to go after the President on his left.  But even without Santorum, Romney still needs to talk the right-wing crazy talk so as not to alienate his right-wing crazy party as he pivots to general election mode.  And, in any event, in terms of what is best for the country and what remains of rational political discourse, we are far better off not having to listen to Santorum's nonsense anymore.   

As I've said before, if his bid was successful, Santorum would have been the creepiest GOP candidate since at least 2008.  (A nice compilation of Santorum's greatest hits can be found here.)

It is rather shocking that a potential nominee with Santorum's extreme views about women, about the role of religion in the public sphere, and about  human-jelly fish hybrids made it this far.  What does it say about a major political party in which Rick Santorum is the preferred candidate for more than 25% of their voters.  (Not to mention that Newt Gingrich is the favorite of another 11%.)

Perhaps, more importantly, what does it say about Mitt Romney (with still only 40% support from his party) that it has taken him this long to vanquish such a weak opponent?

The Supreme Court Trauma Center

By DonkeyHotey

Mr. Etch-A-Sketch

DonkeyHotey

Candidate Romney has taken outrageously extreme positions on contraception, immigration, the environment, and a host of other issues in order to appeal to the Republican base, described so vividly by Hendrick Hertzberg as "an excitable, overlapping assortment of Fox News friends, Limbaugh dittoheads, Tea Party animals, war whoopers, nativists, Christianist fundamentalists, à la carte Catholics (anti-abortion, yes; anti-torture, no), anti-Rooseveltians (Franklin and Theodore), global-warming denialists, post-Confederate white Southrons, creationists, birthers, market idolaters, Europe demonizers, and gun fetishists."  But what will he do after securing the nomination when he must attract a saner, more moderate electorate?

That's easy.  He will just stand on his head, shake, and try something new.  Don't believe me?  Here's what Eric Fehrnstrom, his campaign spokesperson said in response to a question on whether there was concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force Romney to tack too far to the right:

"Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again." 

Jed Lewison at Daily Kos notes that the only thing remarkable about this statement is that "Mitt Romney's campaign is admitting ahead of time what we already knew: that Romney doesn't have any real core principles and will say whatever he thinks it will take to win the election."

Steve Benen describes the earlier incarnations of Mr. Etch-A-Sketch:

Romney 1.0 was an independent who distanced himself from Reagan; Romney 2.0 was a moderate Republican with self-described "progressive" views on social issues and health care; Romney 3.0 was a social conservative who cared deeply about the culture war; and Romney 4.0 is a far-right businessman who represents the GOP establishment and the top 1%.

What will the post-primary Romney look like?  We'll have to see how it shakes out.

The Difference Between Private And Public Morality

By Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website

DonkeyHotey

Republicans have morality upside down. Santorum, Gingrich, and even Romney are barnstorming across the land condemning gay marriage, abortion, out-of-wedlock births, access to contraception, and the wall separating church and state.

But America’s problem isn’t a breakdown in private morality. It’s a breakdown in public morality. What Americans do in their bedrooms is their own business. What corporate executives and Wall Street financiers do in boardrooms and executive suites affects all of us.

There is moral rot in America but it’s not found in the private behavior of ordinary people. It’s located in the public behavior of people who control our economy and are turning our democracy into a financial slush pump. It’s found in Wall Street fraud, exorbitant pay of top executives, financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign “donations.”

Political scientist James Q. Wilson, who died last week, noted that a broken window left unattended signals that no one cares if windows are broken. It becomes an ongoing invitation to throw more stones at more windows, ultimately undermining moral standards of the entire community.

The windows Wall Street broke in the years leading up to the crash of 2008 remain broken. Despite financial fraud on a scale not seen in this country for more than eighty years, not a single executive of a major Wall Street bank has been charged with a crime.

Since 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed 25 cases against mortgage originators and securities firms. A few are still being litigated but most have been settled. They’ve generated almost $2 billion in penalties and other forms of monetary relief, according to the Commission. But almost none of this money has come out of the pockets of CEOs or other company officials; it has come out of the companies — or, more accurately, their shareholders. Federal prosecutors are now signaling they won’t even bring charges in the brazen case of MF Global, which lost billions of dollars that were supposed to be kept safe.

Nor have any of the lawyers, accountants, auditors, or top executives of credit-rating agencies who aided and abetted Wall Street financiers been charged with doing anything wrong.

And the new Dodd-Frank law that was supposed to prevent this from happening again is now so riddled with loopholes, courtesy of Wall Street lobbyists, that it’s almost a sham. The Street prevented the Glass-Steagall Act from being resurrected, and successfully fought against limits on the size of the largest banks.

Windows started breaking years ago. Enron’s court-appointed trustee reported that bankers from Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase didn’t merely look the other way; they dreamed up and sold Enron financial schemes specifically designed to allow Enron to commit fraud. Arthur Andersen, Enron’s auditor, was convicted of obstructing justice by shredding Enron documents, yet most of the Andersen partners who aided and abetted Enron were never punished.

Americans are entitled to their own religious views about gay marriage, contraception, out-of-wedlock births, abortion, and God. We can be truly free only if we’re confident we can go about our private lives without being monitored or intruded upon by government, and can practice whatever faith (or lack of faith) we wish regardless of the religious beliefs of others. A society where one set of religious views is imposed on a large number of citizens who disagree with them is not a democracy.

It’s a theocracy.

But abuses of public trust such as we’ve witnessed for years on the Street and in the executive suites of our largest corporations are not matters of private morality. They’re violations of public morality. They undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy. They’ve led millions of Americans to conclude the game is rigged.

Regressive Republicans have no problem hurling the epithets “shameful,” “disgraceful,” and “contemptible” at private moral decisions they disagree with. Rush Limbaugh calls a young woman a “slut” just for standing up for her beliefs about private morality.

Republicans have staked out the moral low ground. It’s time for Democrats and progressives to stake out the moral high ground, condemning the abuses of economic power and privilege that characterize this new Gilded Age – business deals that are technically legal but wrong because they exploit the trust that investors or employees have place in those businesses, pay packages that are ludicrously high compared with the pay of average workers, political donations so large as to breed cynicism about the ability of their recipients to represent the public as a whole.

An economy is built on a foundation of shared morality. Adam Smith never called himself an economist. The separate field of economics didn’t exist in the eighteenth century. He called himself a moral philosopher. And the book he was proudest of wasn’t “The Wealth of Nations,” but his “Theory of Moral Sentiments” – about the ties that bind people together into societies.

Twice before progressive have saved capitalism from its own excesses by appealing to public morality and common sense. First in the early 1900s, when the captains for American industry had monopolized the economy into giant trusts, American politics had sunk into a swamp of patronage and corruption, and many factory jobs were unsafe – entailing long hours of work at meager pay and often exploiting children. In response, we enacted antitrust, civil service reforms, and labor protections.

And then again in 1930s after the stock market collapsed and a large portion of American workforce was unemployed. Then we regulated banks and insured deposits, cleaned up stock market, and provided social insurance to the destitute.

It’s time once again to save capitalism from its own excesses — and to base a new era of reform on public morality and common sense.

Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  He writes a blog at www.robertreich.org.  His most recent book is Aftershock.

White House Court

By DonkeyHotey

[Related post: Targeted Killings and the Death of Due Process]