SIFMA Encourages Lawmakers to Vote for CISA

SIFMA Managing Director Dave Oxner "debunked" the "five popular myths" utilized by a "small, but vocal, group of lawmakers and privacy interests" to oppose the Cyber Security Information Sharing Act ("CISA") of 2015.

Mr. Oxner set forth the following as fact: (i) "CISA's definition of cyber threat indicators ("CTIs") is very limited" for sharing cyber threat information and rarely results in "any implication of an individual's behavioral, financial, or social information"; (ii) CISA does not authorize the government to surveil individuals, and monitoring can only be conducted on a company's own information systems; (iii) CISA does not permit so-called "hacking back," and companies are not authorized to destroy or render computer systems unusable; (iv) CISA contains multiple, overlapping provisions to guard and respect privacy; and (v) businesses are not granted liability protection when sharing CTIs with the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency and are required to go through the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Oxner quoted Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)'s statement that "[CISA] is not a surveillance bill. . . . It gives the Attorney General [and the Secretary of Homeland Security] the obligation to come up with secure guidelines to protect private information."

See: "Vote CISA" SIFMA Blog Post.
See also: SIFMA's Cybersecurity Resource Center.
Related news: Trade Associations Urge Senate to Act on Cybersecurity Bill (June 12, 2015); SIFMA Urges Passage of Senate Cybersecurity Legislation (June 10, 2015); Mercatus Scholar Asserts That CISA Threatens Privacy and Security (May 13, 2015).