Mercatus Scholar Asserts That CISA Threatens Privacy and Security

According to an article written by Mercatus Scholar Andrea Castillo and published by reason.com, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act ("CISA") is "unlikely to meaningfully prevent cyber-attacks as proponents claim, and could ultimately weaken cybersecurity."

In the article, Ms. Castillo discusses how CISA would extend legal immunity to corporations that choose to grant the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence access to customer data considered relevant to a "cybersecurity threat." According to Ms. Castillo, the data collected by the government under extended immunity then could be shared or concealed at federal agencies' discretion.

Ms. Castillo contends that the "sophisticated coordination" required to create an information-sharing network created by CISA "is easier said than done." In her view, the federal government has a longstanding "inability to effectively share information even with itself," and at least 20 separate information-sharing offices exist with little coordination (or even knowledge) of each other's ventures.

Ultimately, Ms. Castillo reasons that if CISA advanced the notion that cybersecurity is "taken care of" by the government, then cybersecurity could be weakened when CISA allowed users and operators to "neglect critical factors" that remain imperative to maintaining a robust cybersecurity framework.

See: "How CISA Threatens Both Privacy and Cybersecurity," by Andrea Castillo. Related news: Mercatus Scholars Assert That Federal Agencies Failed Their 2014 Cyber Report Card (April 30, 2015).