Internet and Privacy: U.S. turns spy agency on itself, critics of cyber bill say - by Tabassum Zakaria

(cartoon by Mark Parisi)

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a cyber security bill on Thursday that would allow the government and companies to share information about hacking, but which has raised privacy concerns and a veto threat from the White House.

The House approved the bill 248-168, prompting the top Republican and Democrat on the intelligence committee who sponsored it to issue a joint statement lauding the bipartisan approval.

The legislation allows federal agencies such as the National Security Agency, an intelligence agency that eavesdrops overseas and protects classified U.S. government computer networks, to share secret cyber threat information with American companies to help the private sector protect its networks.
Critics had raised privacy concerns that the sharing in return of “threat information” from private network operators to the government was so broad as to allow the NSA to effectively collect data on American communications, which is generally prohibited by law.

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