You might have heard of it, it’s called CISPA and it’s the latest attempt by certain unsavory elements in Congress to place the Internet, and it’s users, in bondage.
CISPA Means Having the Government Read Your Email
CISPA UPDATE:
House Republicans rammed through CISPA this afternoon, ahead of schedule. It would seem we pushed them to the wall and they needed to do this as quietly as possible.
Our hundreds of thousands of emails and tens of thousands of phone calls have had a real impact:
- Amendments were adopted that made CISPA (marginally) better.
- Earlier this month CISPA was supposed to sail through, but we helped foment real opposition, and the vote was far closer than anybody could have imagined even a couple of weeks ago.
- Most Democrats held firm in opposition, and more than two dozen libertarian-leaning Republicans defied their leadership and vote no.
- Most importantly, President Obama has threatened to veto CISPA.
The Senate will consider cyber security legislation in the coming weeks. Let’s turn up the heat right away:
Censorship is the name of the game when talking about CISPA and it’s the third bill of this type to come along in the past few months. There seems to be some very powerful special interest groups pouring money into someone’s pockets to get this type of law passed. No doubt the culprits are the RIAA and the MPAA who represent the major 5 entertainment companies like Sony and Disney.
Today CISPA Opponent Got Some Backup
It isn’t quite over but according to several reports, the CISPA bill is quite possibly headed towards the waste bin. The reason being that, like the Knight who rides into battle just in time to save the day, President Barack Obama voiced opposition towards the bill.
Why Is The White House Opposed To CISPA
Just this week, members of Congress slapped together five amendments which they said would allay the concerns of CISPA critics. However even with these changes, CISPA would still give
the NSA, the domestic spying agency, even more power to snoop on our texts, our emails, our web history and everything else we do online.
President Obama Says He Will Veto CISPA
The White House agrees that this is a problem. That’s why it made the move to publicly oppose CISPA.
The Coffee Cup Democrat will continue to oppose CISPA and any other bill that threatens the freedoms of Americans on the Internet but we would also like to say a big THANK YOU to President Barack Obama for “having our back.”
CISPA is up for a vote this week. It would obliterate any semblance of online privacy in the United States, giving the government — including the military — broad new powers to spy on Internet users.
The White House’s letter expresses precisely the concerns that we’ve been highlighting over recent weeks — and is a result of the public pressure against CISPA:
- The White House says that any cyber-security legislation must preserve “Americans’ privacy, data confidentiality, and civil liberties and [recognize] the civilian nature of cyberspace.”
- It says that, “The bill also lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities and does not contain adequate oversight or accountability measures necessary to ensure that the data is used only for appropriate purposes.”
And the letter goes on to assert that:
The American people expect their Government to enhance security without undermining their privacy and civil liberties.
Without clear legal protections and independent oversight, information sharing legislation will undermine the public’s trust in the Government as well as in the Internet by undermining fundamental privacy, confidentiality, civil liberties, and consumer protections.
The fight isn’t over but we’ve got CISPA on the ropes, lets not ease up so contact your representatives and tell them to VOTE NO on CISPA!
Final Thoughts
15,000 of us, collectively called Congressional offices to urge them to Vote NO on Cispa and furthermore 100,000 have sent in emails to your lawmakers in opposition to CISPA.
Every single bit of all of that work has started showing dividends : President Obama issued a veto threat late yesterday.
Don’t stop now though: We need to keep up the pressure on Congress or they’ll think we burnt out on this issue as they get ready to vote on Friday.
Please ask your friends to urge Obama to stand strong and to email their lawmakers to ask them to vote against CISPA let Remind President Obama that as much as we love having his support against CISPA, we haven’t burned out and we don’t want anyone to change his mind.
About the author
Rob Korczak is a former employee of the United States Federal Government, more exactly he was a staffer in the United States House of Representatives. He'll admit that he wasn't all that political prior to working in Washington on Capitol Hill but after spending a few years there writing "One Minute Speeches" for Congressmen he came to the conclusion that if he could use his abilities in writing, to make a difference than it'd be worth it.
"I believed I could write in support of causes I believed in & maybe reach a small, hopefully not too small, audience," Rob said.
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