In a press release, Rep. Amash, who voted against the bill, explained: “The government shouldn’t be allowed to spy on the books Americans read or the guns they buy ... We can’t sacrifice core civil liberties in the name of cybersecurity.” He also noted that the bill’s definition of “cyber threat information” is “a term that is defined broadly.”
Will Adams, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Amash, says the congressman opposes CISPA, but the amendments to the bill temper somewhat the concerns over privacy issues.
“At the very least, the amendments are a common-sense narrowing of the original bill’s waiver provided private companies from all state and federal liabilities if they share private information with the government,” he said in a phone interview. “CISPA as written took an ax to privacy laws, when Rep. Amash would much rather prefer a scalpel.”
Adams said Rep. Roger’s bill would grant the government the ability to do anything it wished with the information obtained through CISPA. “CISPA is a flawed bill,” he said, “because private information that is protected currently by state and federal laws wouldn’t be exempted, and CISPA could’ve been employed to override those constraints. The amendments limit what government can do with this information.”
Adams says, “Folks say you need a broad exemption for CISPA to be viable, but our view is reasonable in that they address the privacy impediments and how we can fix them.”
Adams said Rep. Amash still opposes the bill: “Even with the narrowing of scope our amendments provide, the government can still use citizen’s information for purposes that have nothing to do with cyber security.”
