Congress Cybersecurity & Tech

CISPA Passes in the House

Paul Rosenzweig
Thursday, April 18, 2013, 1:58 PM
The House of Representatives has passed the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, by a vote of 288-127.  This happened after several amendments were adopted (most notably one offered by Rep.

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

The House of Representatives has passed the Cybersecurity Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, by a vote of 288-127.  This happened after several amendments were adopted (most notably one offered by Rep. McCaul to make DHS the venue for information sharing from the private sector instead of NSA), and despite a Presidential veto threat.  Also worth noting, I was wrong in my prediction yesterday that CISPA would pass by a smaller margin this year.  Last year it was 248-168, so 40 more Representatives  voted for the bill this time around.  That likely reflects a) that the bill was made more palatable by amendments; and b) if possible concerns about cybersecurity are even greater now than they were a year ago.  Now attention turns to the Senate to see if a bill can make it to a conference with the House. For those dying for more information, I'll have a detailed analysis of the bill as passed once the text becomes available.

Paul Rosenzweig is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company and a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security. He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University, a Senior Fellow in the Tech, Law & Security program at American University, and a Board Member of the Journal of National Security Law and Policy.

Subscribe to Lawfare