CISPA Authors Launch Twitter Account To Preach False Merits Of The Bill

from the yeah,-that'll-change-everything dept

Fri, Apr 13th 2012 8:31am — Leigh Beadon

Still desperate to prove that they are in touch with the online community, the House Intelligence Committee has launched a new Twitter account apparently dedicated to talking about how totally awesome CISPA is. They haven't been at it for very long, but they've already blessed the hashtags #CISPA and #cyber (they really love that word, don't they?) with several disingenuous tweets full of misinformation and flat-out inaccuracies:

Firstly, how does a federal law that creates an internet security exemption to every other existing law represent keeping the "federal govt’s hands off the Internet"? The entire point of CISPA is to give every federal agency that already has its hands on the internet more information and power. Similarly, while the bill itself does not have any provisions relating to blocking website access, it creates clear provisions for companies to give data to Homeland Security—the people who already seize websites.

Strong privacy protections? CISPA includes virtually no privacy protections, beyond a call for annual recommendations from the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Meanwhile, it eliminates existing privacy protections, because as soon as a company deems its data "cyber threat information", it can turn it over to the government without worrying about any other laws. As for how CISPA "strictly limits" what the government can do with the data, that depends on your definition of "strictly"—and, of course, whether you're honest about what the bill says, which the House Intelligence Committee is not:

Maybe they'll blame Twitter's character limit, but they left out a very important part there. Information can only be shared with the government if it is related to cybersecurity, but it can be used by the government for the purposes of cybersecurity or national security. That's a much, much broader field, and the cybersecurity heading is already pretty wide open, when you remember how it's defined in CISPA—as anything relating to protecting a network from:

‘(A) efforts to degrade, disrupt, or destroy such system or network; or

‘(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.

Moreover, there are no limitations on how long the government can keep the data, or on how often they can come back and search it for whatever they want—as long as they can justify the search as either cybersecurity or national security. That's not what most people call "strict".

Resistance to CISPA is growing, and more flimsy misinformation isn't going to change anything just because the committee puts it on Twitter. We already wrote about how astonishing it is that Congress expected no resistance to the bill, and now it seems like they're finally waking up to the fact that they were wrong—but, as usual, they have no idea how to respond.

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Filed Under: cispa, house intelligence committee, misinformation, privacy

41 Comments

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Jay (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 7:51am

Mini-rants of the new 21st century.
It is time to understand the new law. This law is trodding not only on the Constitution, but on the precedents set in judicial law.

The 4th Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. That's gone with this bill.

Katz v United States - 4th Amendment applies to technology

US v Warshak - People have an expectation of privacy in their emails and a warrant must be obtained based on probable cause. (I personally believe the standard should be higher such as reasonable doubt).

So in essence, this bill is about one thing: False Accountability. And this bill should recognize that false accountability in its name.

The False Accountability Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act.

Now... Look at the 100 sponsors to this bill. Notice what they've done and what they've tried to do to the United States for the past 40 years. And elitist attitude. Check. Attacks on minorities? Check. A merging of state and government against the people? Check.

Welcome everyone to the 21st century of a fascist government. One that misleads and lies instead of telling the plain truth about a bill that is not needed. So from now on, I'm calling this bill exactly what it is. FACISPA.

It is not a bill to protect consumers. It's a bill to destroy the 4th Amendment. I love liberty too much to allow this to pass. Down with FACISPA!
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:33am

I remember...
Back in the day, "cyber" used by its lonesome was generally a reference to cyber-sex... If wonder if the asshats doing the twittering know that.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:42am

Looks like something you would do for fun Marcus. Are you "making" the news now too?
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:48am

As soon as all of the Congresscritters turn over all their emails and browser histories to the public, they can have my support for this crap bill.
They want to have that sort of access to my life, I expect the same in return.
Then we have no secrets from each other and we can all live happily ever after.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:49am

Re:
What do you do for fun? Aside from things you despise.
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Leigh Beadon (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:50am

Re:
Sorry, no - I could not hope to mimic their level of wrongness. That's more your expertise.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:51am

Re:
what?
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:52am

Re:
what?
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lexieliberty (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:53am

Cyber is such a dirty word.
*slaps ass*
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:01am

I'm now waiting for the tweet announcing that this bill is double-plus good.

Am I the only one getting serious "1984" vibes reading those tweets?
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gorehound (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:03am

Re: Mini-rants of the new 21st century.
YES !!! Down with this Corrupt Asshole Government !
Down with both of these Sold Out Piece of SH$T PARTIES !
I personally would love to see a huge many Millions of People March on the Corrupt Cesspool of a Government and get your Tar & Feathers Ready.
CISPA Will take Away your 4TH Ammendment Rights and it will also screw you on your 1ST Ammendment Rights as well.
It will also do a lot more than that as those two things are like the tip of the large Iceberg.
A Sick and disgusting thing to do to this Free Nation.Which is not free at all.It is nothing but an illusion.
As soon as I hear the call to rise up I am going to join Right in.
I Love My Country !!!
I Hate This Government more than anything I can think of.
These schmucks are completely selling out the Population and they do not give a flying F$$K about any of us.
Washington is playing a dangerous Game.Soon we will have Gulags.
I Do Not Want To Vote For Either Party ! We have to do something.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:09am

Re:
Nope
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Torg (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:21am

Re: I remember...
Maybe we can get them on the sex offender list for propositioning the poor, impressionable children of Twitter?
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Berenerd (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:27am

Re:
^ That
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T.H. Uhshadough, 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:29am

Titter is for lazy empty-headed morons. Sadly, that's what "average people" seem to be.
So I guess this matters.

It should fall into the "who gives a rat's ..." category, but ... sigh ... what dim-witted, lazy, facile and easily co-opted wasted cellular material "average people" are.

The cells could have been used to constitute something useful, like trees or weeds.
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silverscarcat (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:31am

Re: I remember...
I dunno...

Would be funny if someone told them that.
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gorehound (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:34am

Made A Quick Petition
http://wh.gov/U19
Sing my Petition.
F$CK CISPA
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Watchit (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:41am

They sound like some kinda bad marketing campaign... :[
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Lowestofthekeys (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:49am

Re:
http://tinypic.com/r/2q9gmxe/5
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Chris Brand (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:51am

It'll take a few more years, probably...
... before politicians realise that "don't break the Internet" is as important a rule for them to live by as "don't break TV" , but they will get there. Keep educating.
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Angelito (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 10:09am

Re: Made A Quick Petition
I am Mexican, and will get an account for vote en that petition because it will afect me in the future.

Tinfoil note. If search for the term CISPA on all the petitions I got no results !
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weneedhelp (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 10:20am

Re:
YA know, even I AM GETTING tired of your talentless jabs at Marcus. Its getting old... and boring. Come up with something funny or GTFO.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 10:24am

if there was nothing wrong with the Bill, the House Intelligence Committee wouldn't be wasting time and effort in trying to convince everyone else that there was nothing wrong with it. just like SOPA and soon, hopefully, ACTA, the people have expressed that they have had enough of governments continuously interfering with the Internet and what people can or cannot do, when the main purpose is to protect a dying entertainment industry, not to protect citizens from ANYTHING other than greedy old farts that want to control everything!
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surfer (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 10:33am

Re:
+5 Internets
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 11:15am

Re: Re:
Funny, even his protectors can't avoid using "talentless" and "Marcus" in the same sentence.
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silverscarcat (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 11:32am

Re: Re: Re:
Just like you?
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BeeAitch (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 11:35am

Re: Re: I remember...
Funny as in the stupefied look on their faces when they still didn't get it?

Bonus: feel free to imagine all sorts of variations on what 'it' is. :)
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E. Zachary Knight (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 11:51am

Re: Re: Made A Quick Petition
Petitions are not publicly searchable until they reach a certain threshold of signatures. I think it is around 100. Can't remember exactly. This is meant to weed out the junk and spam petitions.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 12:03pm

Idea...
Maybe we need a billboard in DC too for the rest of Congress.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 12:08pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Me? No, despite an exhaustive review of the thesaurus, I've never been able to find a more appropriate word than "talentless" to use when speaking of Marcus.
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Ninja (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 12:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
He won't sing for you in Village People costumes if you call him names here in TD...
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Keii (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 12:57pm

Re: Re: I remember...
Nobody should tell them. Let's see how far they can go on with people snickering at the elephant in the room.
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Keii (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 1:01pm

Re: Re: Re: I remember...
We should also try and convince them to use other similar terms for their campaign, like Amended Security Legislation #ASL
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test, 13 Apr 2012 @ 1:08pm

TEst
The sneaky B clause above, gives EVERYTHING that sopa wanted to give to both government and private corporations to censor ANYthing :

".........(B) theft or misappropriation of private or government information, intellectual property, or personally identifiable information.............."

'theft or misappropriation of private information and intellectual property', basically evolves to what sopa wanted to do about catching those nasty 'pirates', and doing anything government or private corporations want to do with their information.

What's amazing is, how the people who are preparing this bill, have been able to squeeze half of the essence of SOPA into CISPA with just one sentence, and two phrases .....
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Drew (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 1:13pm

Ugh I can't possibly explain the way I feel about this scum with twitters crappy limit. Gd I hate twitter lol...

Alright to the point South Park style.
CISPA is bad mkay.

No one likes the idea of a legal virtual peeping tom for Christ sakes! "With 7 billion eyes"

If they end up with their way systems will be installed to make spying easy as one click. Now about that!!!
How long would it be till some 12 year old hacker outsmarts them and steals massive amounts of data? Data that could be pointless or potentially cataclysmic.

Also what about the small number of people running it? They have just been given a backdoor to the world!
Their moronic ways are going to fuck us all over in the end if we don't stop it now.

No one person deserves the key to everything!! That kind of power can corrupt even the most noble of people.
As we are in a society ruled by technology it is of the utmost importance to make sure it stays divided among everyone and protect it at all cost. No single one of us deserves the whole thing and none of us EVER WILL EVER!

Mark my words they're going to make privacy "the best defense we have when it comes to protecting data" obsolete!
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 5:09pm

Re:
Do you really think, your making an impact?

My delusional friend, get your head out your ass
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 5:11pm

Re: Re:
@ clever dick

"Looks like something you would do for fun Marcus. Are you "making" the news now too?"
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Watchit (profile), 13 Apr 2012 @ 5:15pm

Re:
well said :D
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 7:14pm

"Cyber bill"? Ugh.
I'm ashamed to be the same species as the people who thought that randomly appending "cyber" to nouns would somehow make them sound competent and informed.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 8:45pm

Re: Re:
Let me fix that for you:

"Do you really think?"

Full stop, right there. The answer is 'no.'
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Apr 2012 @ 9:19pm

"House Intel Comm"

The name makes it sound like they're a branch of the military intelligence PSYOPS unit. I wonder if that's what they were going for.
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