Why Obama Would Veto CISPA 2013: House Passes It, News, Infographic, Analysis

Written by Gina Smith

With U.S. President Barack Obama all but dissing CISPA, a veto would be likely should the reincarnation of this much derided “cybersecurity” bill should pass the House of Representatives and Senate. What is CISPA 2013? What does Dvorak think about it? Why would Obama veto it? Who supports it? Find answers here and let us know what you think.

aNewDomain.net — UPDATE APRIL 18: United States President Barack Obama signaled he likely would veto CISPA — the controversial bill that a U.S. House Intelligence Committee approved this week. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013 (CISPA) passed the House today, 288 against 127. It was primarily a Republican win. Merely 29 of the no votes were Republican.

Last year, the Internet went nuts with complaints about the bill’s breadth and effect on online privacy.

In a prepared statement recently, a spokesperson for Obama’s National Security Council all but dissed it. Caitlin Hayden said:

We continue to believe that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the roles of civilian and intelligence agencies, and include targeted liability protections … we believe the adopted committee amendments reflect a good-faith effort to incorporate some of the Administration’s important substantive concerns, but we do not believe these changes have addressed some outstanding fundamental priorities.”

What is CISPA? Check out the infographic below to see what the fuss is about — and find out why Facebook and other companies say they supported the last CISPA push here.

Online critics and privacy advocates loudly derided the 2011 version of CISPA. It trended, along with enormous waves of opposition around the equally controversial bills dubbed SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act ).

A Declaration of Internet Freedom emerged in response to the trio of acts. Tens of thousands of Internet users have signed it.

CISPA, PIPA and SOPA all fizzled out in 2012. But as our John C. Dvorak predicted last year, efforts to rein in data are back.

Here’s a CISPA infographic circa 2012 that explains the controversy and why some believe it potentially violates U.S. Fourth Amendment protections.

cispa 2013 infographic 1-e1334620413139

In case you missed it, here’s the Enemies of the Intenet infographic that went viral last year — all around CISPA, PIPA and SOPA issues. Check that out below.

Enemies-of-the-Internet-cispa-pipa-sopa-anewdomain

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