If you download and distribute copyrighted material on the Internet, or share any information that governments or corporations find inconvenient, you could soon be labeled a threat to national security in the United States.
That’s the aim of a bill in Congress called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which some have labeled in recent weeks as a type of sequel to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a highly controversial series of proposals that were utterly destroyed by an online mass work-stoppage protest earlier this year.
While the bill is openly supported by companies like AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Facebook, Boeing and Intel, ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson cautioned last month that it is not something to be taken up lightly.
The NSA has formally denied that allegation amid questioning by Congress, but it’s not just Bamford’s sources making those claims. Prior reporting by MSNBC, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and other publications have carried similar allegations by other NSA insiders, which the agency always denies in court by claiming state secrets.
Despite the immense concern about CISPA, it has very little chance of clearing Congress before the 2012 elections, although it has already gathered 106 House co-sponsors from both parties — the vast majority of which are Republicans.
While the bill is openly supported by companies like AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Facebook, Boeing and Intel, ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson cautioned last month that it is not something to be taken up lightly.
The NSA has formally denied that allegation amid questioning by Congress, but it’s not just Bamford’s sources making those claims. Prior reporting by MSNBC, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and other publications have carried similar allegations by other NSA insiders, which the agency always denies in court by claiming state secrets.
Despite the immense concern about CISPA, it has very little chance of clearing Congress before the 2012 elections, although it has already gathered 106 House co-sponsors from both parties — the vast majority of which are Republicans.
.jpg)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment