Nearly thirty civil liberties groups have written to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence denouncing forthcoming “cybersecurity” legislation, warning that it grants broad powers for law enforcement and the federal government to spy on American citizens.
Congress has long been working toward a cybersecurity bill that would enable information sharing between private companies and the government in the event of a suspected cyber threat. But privacy groups insist that this must come with strong privacy protections, which the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) lacks.
“CISA disregards the fact that information sharing can – and to be truly effective, must – offer both security and robust privacy protections,” the letter reads. The list of those signed on to the letter include the ACLU and the Sunlight Foundation, as well as individual security experts and academics.
The groups address several particular concerns with the draft legislation, including the fact that it would automatically allow the NSA to access any personal information shared with a government entity. “Congress should be working to limit the NSA’s overbroad authorities to conduct surveillance, rather than passing a bill that would increase the NSA’s access to personal information and private communications,” the groups maintain.
The bill also lacks any requirement that companies redact personally identifying information when they share information about cyber threats, a provision the letter calls “a fundamental and important privacy protection.”
CISA grants broad authority to law enforcement when it comes to using any of this information, which privacy groups object to on the basis that the bill should limit authorization to “specific cyber crimes identified in the bill and preventing imminent loss of life or serious bodily harm.”
“The lack of use limitations creates yet another loophole for law enforcement to conduct backdoor searches on Americans – including searches of digital communications that would otherwise require law enforcement to obtain a warrant based on probable cause,” they write.
CISA proponents like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) reject these criticisms of the bill. “We’ve bent over backwards to try and protect the privacy rights,” she told The Hill last week.
