EFF joined over 68 security experts, tech companies, and civil society organizations urging President Obama to threaten to veto the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA, S. 754) as part of our Week of Action opposing CISA.
This broad coalition strongly opposes CISA because it threatens privacy and civil liberties and may even undermine Internet security. As the letter states:
CISA fails to protect users’ personal information. It allows vast amounts of personal data to be shared with the government, even that which is not necessary to identify or respond to a cybersecurity threat. This is because CISA permits companies to leave personal and identifying information in indicators it shares with the government.
In 2013, the Obama Administration first stated its opposition to CISPA and its intention to veto it because the legislation failed to “preserve Americans’ privacy, data confidentiality, and civil liberties and recognize the civilian nature of cyberspace.” The following year the Administration again voiced strong opposition to CISPA.
This newest letter urges President Obama to veto CISA as its privacy-invasive provisions are similar to CISPA.
The letter concludes:
CISA fails to address many of the concerns raised about preceding information sharing bills that the Administration opposed, and it threatens to undermine privacy and civil liberties, and increase cybersurveillance. We strongly oppose CISA and we urge you to again defend privacy and civil liberties by voicing your opposition and your intention to veto it.
The Week of Action
Join us in our Week of Action to stop CISA. Here’s how to help:
- Visit the Stop Cyber Spying coalition website where you can email and fax your Senators and tell them to vote no on CISA.
- Use a new tool developed by Fight for the Future to fax your lawmakers from the Internet. We want to make sure they get the message.
- Check out our AMA on Reddit on Wednesday July 29 at 10am ET/7am PT with EFF, Access, Fight for the Future, and the ACLU and let your friends know about it.
- Help us spread the word. After you’ve taken action, tweet out why CISA must be stopped with the hashtag #StopCISA. Use the hashtag #FaxBigBrother if you want to automatically send a fax to your Senator opposing CISA. If you have a blog, join us by publishing a blog post this week about why you oppose CISA, and help us spread the word about the action tools at https://stopcyberspying.com/. For detailed analysis you can check out this blog post and this chart.
