Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act

2269 Words5 Pages

The Stop Online Piracy Act was proposed in January of 2012. SOPA was a legislative act that attempted to prevent piracy through DNS blocking and censorship. The legislation caused the protest and blackout of multiple online internet services including Reddit, 4Chan, Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla, and Tumblr. Now, internet users are faced with another possible challenge called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. CISPA was quickly passed by the House of Representatives on April 26th, 2012, and is now being processed through the Senate (Beadon). CISPA's purpose is to promote national cybersecurity through allowing private companies and the federal government to exchange users' private information, including emails and text messages, with complete legal immunity and one hundred percent anonymity. To some, CISPA appears as SOPA 2.0, another attempt to further limit American rights and privacy. Meanwhile, to others, CISPA appears as a milestone that needs to be reached in order to advance technologically and improve the nation's security. CISPA's purpose appears noble, but the current version of the legislation at least requires a revision due to its privacy invading policies, vague terminology, possible restrictions of internet freedom, and violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Many people, including some business leaders such as Reddit's and Mozilla's founders, are disappointed with the flawed form that CISPA possessed when it was rushed through the House of Representatives. In an interview with CNN on May 7th, 2012, Alexis Ohanian, the CEO of Reddit, stated that he refuses to purchase Facebook's stock because of its support for CISPA (Greenberg). In addition, CISPA puts the people's privacy at significant risk be...

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