The Senate may soon bring up a cybersecurity bill championed by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas). It’s a more moderate version of Dianne Feinstein’s Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), which some considered dead after the Senate failed to pass NSA reform last month.
McCaul’s bill would provide companies legal protection to share cyber threats with the government, and require government agencies to report threats to DHS’s cybersecurity center.
Feinstein’s bill was more expansive, and allowed for sharing between companies and the NSA, rather than DHS, like McCaul’s bill. Privacy advocates strongly opposed any move to expand the NSA’s ability to glean American data.
According to The Hill, the Chamber of Commerce is now pressuring the Senate to move on McCaul’s bill. After a Chamber event, McCaul said there had been “A lot of intense negotiations,” and “that there had been some movement in the Senate.”
“This would be the most significant piece of cyber legislation that’s been passed by the United States Congress,” he said.
Former NSA Director Keith Alexander said last month that the United States is not prepared for a cyberattack. “These are the kinds of concerns that our country as a whole needs to look at,” Alexander said.
The White House, State Department, and National Weather Service all suffered hacks this year.
