Cybersecurity measures gain steam in Washington, but West Michigan lawmakers differ on approach

GRAND RAPIDS, MI ? A controversial bill aimed at curbing cyberattacks from within and outside of the United States was revived this week in Congress, and West Michigan lawmakers disagree on the legislation's vast implications.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, was reintroduced Wednesday, Feb. 13, by Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, of Brighton. It has divided civil liberties advocates and those who point to reported increases in cyberattacks on government and private sector computer networks.

The bill is identical to the one that passed the House in April 2012 by a 248-168 vote. It later died in the Senate.

As it's written, CISPA enables the sharing of Internet traffic data among companies and federal authorities in an effort to discover potential cyber threats from, as some examples point out, countries like Iran and China.

The legislation waives liability for companies that share Internet traffic data with the government as a way to encourage the timely reporting of potential threats.

Incidentally, President Barack Obama on Tuesday issued an executive order that allows federal agencies to alert companies to potential cyberattacks or threats.

Unlike CISPA, Obama's executive order does not remove liability for corporations who share Internet traffic data with the government.

During last year's vote, Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga, of Zeeland, joined in supporting CISPA.

Fellow Republican Rep. Justin Amash, of Cascade Township, was one of two GOP lawmakers from Michigan to vote against the bill, the other being disgraced former Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, of Livonia.

Huizenga on Wednesday would not say definitively whether he will support CISPA again.

"I'm not an automatic 'yes' on anything," Huizenga said. "I'm too much of a stubborn Dutchman. I want to go in and make sure that I have an understanding and am able to verify this stuff."

So far, though, Huizenga said "I'm comfortable with the way CISPA is set up."

It also was unclear whether Amash would vote against CISPA again. A spokesman emailed Amash's Facebook explanation from last year, wherein he blasts CISPA as a potential civil liberties threat.

Notably, an Amash amendment attached to CISPA last year was included in the revived legislation. The amendment exempts information like individuals' tax returns and educational, medical and firearms sales records from use by federal officials under CISPA.

Despite the amendment being added, Amash voted against the bill because, as he wrote on Facebook, its "broad liability waiver remains."

Amash also took issue with the definition of "cyber threat information," which he said was "defined broadly to mean any information 'directly pertaining to ? [a] threat to [] a system or network,' and it may include your personally identifiable information.'"

"In addition," he added, "the government may use your personal information for many purposes unrelated to cybersecurity."

CISPA's supporters, which included tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook, say the legislation would allow the government to effectively investigate possible security threats.

Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Washington, D.C.-based transparency watchdog Sunlight Foundation, have derided the legislation as a civil liberties overreach.

Rogers appeared on CBS News program Face the Nation on Sunday, Feb. 10, saying CISPA is critical element in fighting cyberattacks from within and without the United States.

"It's very simple: Share information," Rogers said. "Share cyber threat information. The senior leadership in the intelligence community said that they think we can stop 90 percent of our problems just by sharing classified cyber threat information."

Rogers went on to estimate 95 percent of private sector networks are "incredibly vulnerable" to cyberattacks.

Huizenga echoed calls for bolstered security, and said the depth and breadth of potential threats CISPA intends to head off were laid out to him during a classified meeting.

There are threats "not only to government computers, but to what some people would argue are some pretty central networks to how things are running," Huizenga said.

"We've seen attacks on Wall Street, we've seen attacks on finances, on credit cards, we've seen attacks on things that are part of our daily lives," he added.

Still, detractors have called CISPA worse than the defunct bills known as SOPA and PIPA, which were designed to halt the trafficking of intellectual property online.

Those bills were were publicly unpopular, and led to a groundswell of Internet activism because of the perceived threat of government censorship and harm to innovation online.

Zane McMillin may be reached through email and Twitter.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/michigan-news/~3/Ph5rqWtEYPs/cybersecurity_measures_gain_st.html

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