It is true that some of the criticism of CISPA is off the mark. So was some of the criticism of SOPA. It does not necessarily follow that _all_ of the criticism of CISPA is uninformed, and in fact much of it is perfectly accurate. Rebutting uninformed criticism may be an entertaining hobby, but it leaves the informed criticism unrebutted.
I have yet to hear a good argument for why we need CISPA to override all federal and state privacy laws, including laws restricting what companies can turn over to the government in the absence of legal process. In programmerese, CISPA is a wildcard approach -- an "rm -rf *" -- when you haven't done an "ls" to see what's in the directory first. Perhaps one or two need to be overriden for good reason, but why not specify them instead of using a wildcard?
Here are some details:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57422693-281/
What sparked significant privacy worries is the section of CISPA that says "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information "with any other entity, including the federal government." It doesn't, however, require them to do so.
By including the word "notwithstanding," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) intended to make CISPA trump all existing federal and state civil and criminal laws. (It's so broad that the non-partisan Congressional Research Service once warned (PDF) that using the term in legislation may "have unforeseen consequences for both existing and future laws.")
"Notwithstanding" would trump wiretap laws, Web companies' privacy policies, gun laws, educational record laws, census data, medical records, and other statutes that protect information, warns the ACLU's Richardson: "For cybersecurity purposes, all of those entities can turn over that information to the federal government."
Since otherwise reputable sources are running articles suggesting that CISPA is "the worst bill since SOPA" and "a power grab by the content industry" and "a backdoor warrantless wiretap" and "a mechanism by which the feds will read our email", I respectfully disagree with you about the utility of refuting uninformed criticism of the bill. Most of the criticism of the bill is uninformed.
I've already stipulated that some articles are ill-informed or even wrong. Sadly not everyone who writes about legislation reads it first. But some of us do. :)
I have yet to hear a good argument for why we need CISPA to override all federal and state privacy laws, including laws restricting what companies can turn over to the government in the absence of legal process. In programmerese, CISPA is a wildcard approach -- an "rm -rf *" -- when you haven't done an "ls" to see what's in the directory first. Perhaps one or two need to be overriden for good reason, but why not specify them instead of using a wildcard?
Here are some details: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57422693-281/ What sparked significant privacy worries is the section of CISPA that says "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information "with any other entity, including the federal government." It doesn't, however, require them to do so. By including the word "notwithstanding," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) intended to make CISPA trump all existing federal and state civil and criminal laws. (It's so broad that the non-partisan Congressional Research Service once warned (PDF) that using the term in legislation may "have unforeseen consequences for both existing and future laws.") "Notwithstanding" would trump wiretap laws, Web companies' privacy policies, gun laws, educational record laws, census data, medical records, and other statutes that protect information, warns the ACLU's Richardson: "For cybersecurity purposes, all of those entities can turn over that information to the federal government."