Daily Archives: October 22, 2015

Urgent action needed to stop CISA! (Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act)

by

CISA Moves Forward: These 83 Senators Just Voted To Expand Surveillance

from the ridiculous dept

Well, it’s not a huge surprise that it moved forward, but the faux “cybersecurity” bill, which is actually a surveillance bill in disguise, CISA (Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act), has moved forward in the Senate via an overwhelming 83 to 14 vote. As we’ve discussed at length, while CISA is positioned as just a “voluntary” cybersecurity information sharing bill, it’s really none of those things. It’s not voluntary and it’s not really about cybersecurity. Instead, it’s a surveillance bill, that effectively gives the NSA greater access to information from companies in order to do deeper snooping through its upstream collection points. Even the attempts to supposedly “clarify” the language to protect data from being used for surveillance shows that the language is deliberately written to look like it does one thing, while really opening up the ability of the NSA and FBI to get much more information.

This is bad news, which is why nearly all of the tech/internet industry have come out against the bill. Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Google and more have spoken out against the bill in recent days, recognizing that at a time when they’re still trying to win back the trust of their users following the Snowden revelations, the last thing they need is for the US government to pass a new sneaky surveillance bill. But, apparently, 83 Senators chose not to listen.

Bad news.

Despite the fact that nearly every major tech company and security expert has come out against it, Congress is still rushing toward a vote on CISA, and the numbers are not looking good. The House Intelligence chief is claiming that CISA will pass “overwhelmingly,” despite the massive public outcry. 

It pains me to say this, but CISA is going to become law unless we go all out right now and every single person getting this does everything in their power to stop it and their phones ring off the hook.

There’s just hours left to have an impact: click here to tell your lawmakers to vote NO on CISA right now.

If you’re still catching up, CISA is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which is one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation in the Internet’s history. It sets the precedent for what the Internet is used for into the future. It would effectively give the government full access to all of our information to use as they wish, end privacy policies, and make all of us more vulnerable to cyber attacks.

CISA would allow spy agencies like the NSA to collect even more of your personal data and then share it with dozens of other government agencies, all the way down to local police, authorizing them to use it for an absurdly wide range of purposes that have nothing to do with “cybersecurity,” including investigating “fake” id’s.

Worse, it will literally do nothing to stop the types of high profile cyber attacks that Congress is using to justify it. So we get less privacy AND less security, while giant companies like Target, Experian, and Sony will get legal immunity that lets them on the hook when they fail to protect our data.

There’s still a chance. We’ve won against these types of odds before. But everyone getting this needs to take action TODAY. Click here to speak out, we’ve made it easy to email, tweet, and call to stop CISA.

No matter what happens, we’ve put up a hell of a fight. Together we put the fear of the Internet into the largest tech companies in the U.S. and got them to take a stand against this bill. Now we need to bring it home.

We at Fight for the Future are working around the clock on this right now. Several of us are en route to Washington, DC as I write this and we’ll be participating in an awesome protest outside Congress TONIGHT at 6:30pm EST with giant light up signs.

Beyond making calls, if you’re in the DC area or know someone who is, go here to get the details and RSVP or spread the word:https://www.decidethefuture.org/protest

Congress is hoping that they can sneak this bill through without a fight. We need to prove them wrong.

The final vote is days away. Click here to take action against CISA right now.

We can’t thank you enough for all you do. This is the free speech fight of our generation, and we’re proud to be with you on the frontlines.

For the Internet,
~ Evan, Tiffiniy, Holmes, Charlie, Jeff, Aki, Jessica, Vasjen, and Sarah
Fight for the Future