CISA Is Now The Law: How Congress Quietly Passed The Second Patriot Act
Update: CISA is now the law: OBAMA SIGNS SPENDING, TAX BILL THAT REPEALS OIL EXPORT BAN
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Back in 2014, civil liberties and privacy advocates were up in arms
when the government tried to quietly push through the Cybersecurity
Information Sharing Act, or CISA, a law which would allow federal
agencies - including the NSA - to share cybersecurity, and really any
information with private corporations "notwithstanding any other
provision of law." The most vocal complaint involved CISA’s
information-sharing channel, which was ostensibly created for responding
quickly to hacks and breaches, and which provided a loophole in privacy laws that enabled intelligence and law enforcement surveillance without a warrant.
Ironically, in its earlier version, CISA had drawn the opposition of
tech firms including Apple, Twitter, Reddit, as well as the Business
Software Alliance, the Computer and Communications Industry Association
and many others including countless politicians and, most amusingly, the
White House itself.
In April, a coalition of 55 civil liberties groups and security
experts signed onto an open letter opposing it. In July, the Department
of Homeland Security itself warned that the bill could overwhelm the
agency with data of “dubious value” at the same time as it “sweep[s]
away privacy protections.” Most notably, the biggest aggregator of
online private content, Facebook, vehemently opposed the legislation
however a month ago it was "surprisingly" revealed that Zuckerberg had
been quietly on the side of the NSA all along as we reported in "Facebook Caught Secretly Lobbying For Privacy-Destroying "Cyber-Security" Bill."
Even Snowden chimed in:
Shameful: @Facebook secretly backing Senate's zombie #CISA surveillance bill while publicly pretending to oppose it. https://t.co/du7RK7V1WJ— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 25, 2015 
