Your Voice is Needed Now
Showing how little regard the Obama administration and a large percentage of both Democrats and Republicans have for our rights to privacy, today the Obama administration is pushing the US Senate to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 before opposition from several lawmakers can either stall or alter the bill to actually respect the rights of the American people.
Computerworld provides some details:
Four White House officials called on the Senate to pass the revised Cybersecurity Act, a bill that would create a new mechanism for businesses to share cyberthreat information with each other and with government agencies.
The bill would also create a new intra-agency council to work with private companies to develop cybersecurity standards that businesses could voluntarily adopt. The bill would offer incentives to companies that volunteer for cybersecurity programs, including protection from lawsuits related to cyberincidents and increased help and information on cybersecurity issues from U.S. agencies.
It's "imperative" for the Senate to pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislature, John Brennan, assistant to President Barack Obama for homeland security and counterterrorism, said during a press briefing. The bill would give cybersecurity professional the "tools they need to deal with this increasingly sophisticated and pervasive threat," he added.
Anti-privacy Senators are pushing this bill to hand the reins of our cybersecurity systems to the miligary intelligence agencies like the NSA, the very agency responsible for the warrantless wiretapping program instituted under the Bush administration and expanded by the Obama administration.
Not everyone in the US Senate is happy about this, there is an amendment that would help go a long way to neuter the outrageous violations that this bill would use. Senators Franken and Paul have teamed up to offer the Franken-Paul amendment that would ensure that companies do not have new, overbroad authority to monitor and even block our private communications.
But the purpose of this bill is very clear. It would incentivize private companies to collect AND hand over communications that take place on private servers over to the government. The thinking is that this will not violate anyone’s rights since the government would not be demanding the info, it would just be given to them.
And that’s the insidiousness of the whole idea, we, the American people, would be paying the government through taxes to pay private companies to spy on us…
This bill is not needed and is a gross violation of our rights.
This is also the end result of ‘bipartisanship’. I keep hearing many calling on our government to lead through bipartisanship, but whenever that happens, that is when our rights get stripped. When neither of the parties is blocking the overreach of the government being pushed by the other party, the end result is the further erosion of our rights.
Stand up for the rights, not just yours but everyone’s. It’s the American thing to do. Blocking this outrageousness is the real imperative.