Privacy advocates calling on President Obama to veto the legislation, saying his legacy\u2013and the future of the Internet\u2013depend on it<\/p>\n
Digital rights groups are sounding the alarm after sources reportedly confirmed on Monday that the controversial cyber-surveillance bill formerly known as CISA<\/a> has been slipped into the “must-pass” omnibus spending bill that Congress is expected to vote on later this week.<\/p>\n Fight for the Future, a leading digital rights group that has organized fierce grassroots resistance to CISA (otherwise known as Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act) and similar bills, issued a statement<\/a> saying that all eyes will be on President Barack Obama should the legislation reach his desk.<\/p>\n “Now is when we\u2019ll find out whether President Obama really cares about the Internet and freedom of speech, or whether he\u2019s happy to roll over and allow technologically illiterate members of Congress break the Internet in the name of cybersecurity,” said the group’s campaign director, Evan Greer.<\/p>\n Negotiators have been working to pass some version of the CISA bill, which would allow the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies, for more than three years.<\/p>\n After the Senate passed its Intelligence Committee-originated version in October, lawmakers have been trying meld<\/a> that rule with two similar versions that recently passed in the House\u2013amounting to a bill which critics warn is completely gutted of any privacy protections.<\/p>\n Now, citing “media reports and sources close to legislative negotiations,” privacy advocates say that the legislation has been tacked on to the budget bill. According<\/a> to The Hill<\/em>, “Most observers believe the tactic gives the cyber bill its best shot of getting through Congress in 2015, as only a handful of legislative days remain before the upcoming recess.”<\/p>\n Fight for the Future on Monday launched a petition campaign <\/a>calling on the president to reject the bill, which it warns would allow “unlimited surveillance” thus destroying online privacy, make users more vulnerable<\/a> to hackers, and eliminate any incentive that private technologies might have to improve cyber security.<\/p>\n “This administration promised to veto any information sharing bill that did not adequately protect Internet users\u2019 privacy, and the final version of this bill doesn\u2019t even come close,” Greer continued.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Via Common Dreams<\/a>.\u00a0This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Privacy advocates calling on President Obama to veto the legislation, saying his legacy\u2013and the future of the Internet\u2013depend on it by\u00a0Lauren McCauley Digital rights groups are sounding the alarm after sources reportedly confirmed on Monday that the controversial cyber-surveillance bill formerly known as CISA has been slipped into the “must-pass” omnibus spending bill that Congress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-208724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}