CISPA Bill Passed

[AnaSCI]

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"CISPA" redirects here. For other uses, see Cayman Islands Society of Professional Accountants.
Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act Great Seal of the United States.
Full title To provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.

Introduced in the House as H.R. 3523 by Mike Rogers (R-MI) on November 30, 2011
Passed the House on April 26, 2012 (248–168) (failed to become law when it did not pass the Senate in the same session)
Reintroduced in the House as H.R. 624 by Mike Rogers (R-MI) on February 12, 2013
Committee consideration by: House Select Committee on Intelligence

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is a proposed law in the United States which would allow for the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies. The stated aim of the bill is to help the U.S government investigate cyber threats and ensure the security of networks against cyberattack.[1]

The legislation was introduced on November 30, 2011 by U.S. Representative Michael Rogers (R-MI) and 111 co-sponsors.[2][3] It was passed in the House of Representatives on April 26, 2012, but was not passed by the U.S. Senate.[4] President Obama's advisers have argued that the bill lacks confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards and they advised him to veto it.[5] In February 2013 the House reintroduced the bill [6] and passed it on April 18, 2013.[7]

CISPA has been criticized by advocates of Internet privacy and civil liberties, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Fight for the Future, and Avaaz.org, as well as various conservative and libertarian groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, TechFreedom, FreedomWorks, Americans for Limited Government, Liberty Coalition, and the American Conservative Union. Those groups argue CISPA contains too few limits on how and when the government may monitor a private individual’s Internet browsing information. Additionally, they fear that such new powers could be used to spy on the general public rather than to pursue malicious hackers.[8][9] CISPA had garnered favor from corporations and lobbying groups such as Microsoft, Facebook, AT&T, IBM, Apple and the United States Chamber of Commerce, which look on it as a simple and effective means of sharing important cyber threat information with the government.[10]

Some critics saw CISPA as a second attempt at strengthening digital piracy laws after the Stop Online Piracy Act met huge opposition.[11] Intellectual property theft was initially listed in the bill as a possible cause for sharing Web traffic information with the government, though it was removed in subsequent drafts.[12]

 

[ProFIT]

Our freedoms are very quickly being stripped away while people sit back and do nothing.

 

[Jello]

The IRS is using a law passed back in the '80s to say they can read your emails that are more then 90 days old as they become public property after that. Maybe you can find the specifics on that as well.

 

[AnaSCI]

The IRS is using a law passed back in the '80s to say they can read your emails that are more then 90 days old as they become public property after that. Maybe you can find the specifics on that as well.

IRS may be reading your email without a warrant, documents suggest* - Technology on NBCNews.com

The IRS could be reading your emails without a warrant, according to newly released documents obtained by the ACLU under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The civil liberties organization shared the documents Wednesday, saying that its review of IRS Criminal Tax Division manuals and memos show that the agency is not always following a 2010 appellate court ruling that the government must obtain a warrant before ordering email providers to turn over messages.

In the case, the United States v. Warshak, government investigators said they had read 27,000 emails without getting a search warrant first. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled Dec. 10, 2010, threw out the emails as evidence.

As NBC's Bob Sullivan wrote last summer, "In the aftermath of the Warshak case, the Internal Revenue Service told its investigators that they should not try to obtain emails without a court order, but in doing so it hinted that other warrantless email searches had been conducted in the past."

NBC News contacted the IRS Wednesday for comment, and will update this story when we hear back.

Nathan Freed Wessler, attorney for the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, wrote on the ACLU blog Wednesday that the IRS has yet to tell the public "whether it is following Warshak everywhere in the country, or only within the Sixth Circuit."

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals' jurisdiction covers appeals made in the states of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as those from the U.S. Tax Court and "certain federal administrative agencies where the non-governmental parties are from the states that make up the Sixth Circuit," according to the court.

"The documents the ACLU obtained make clear that, before Warshak, it was the policy of the IRS to read people’s email without getting a warrant," Wessler wrote. "Not only that, but the IRS believed that the Fourth Amendment" — which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures —"did not apply to email at all."

The IRS provided the ACLU with 247 page of records, Wessler wrote, and while those records don't answer the question "point blank" of whether the IRS is seeking warrants for emails, the documents "suggest otherwise."

The agency, he said, "should tell the public whether it always gets a warrant to access email and other private communications in the course of criminal investigations. And if the agency does not get a warrant, it should change its policy to always require one."

Updated, 8:15 p.m. ET Thursday: In a statement to NBC News Thursday, the IRS said: "Respecting taxpayer rights and taxpayer privacy are cornerstone principles for the IRS. Our job is to administer the nation's tax laws, and we do so in a way that follows the law and treats taxpayers with respect."