Over the weekend Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) delivered the GOP’s weekend address, which he used to focus on cybersecurity and promote his committee’s CISA bill.
The bill, which moved out of committee last week with 14-1 support, is meant to promote information sharing between the government and private sector while providing participating firms liability protection. Burr used the address to warn about the increasing number and sophistication of hacks and argued that all participation was voluntary, requirements are in place to ensure all private information be scrubbed and only specific cyberattack information can be shared.
Burr argued that the bill has bipartisan support and mentioned ranking member Dianne Feinstein and Sen. John McCain for their work on the bill. “After hundreds of calls with the government, business community, and civil liberties groups, I am confident that Sen. Feinstein, Sen. McCain and I have put together a balanced approach that will help your private information stay just that way — private. Today, we have a solution that can minimize the threats to your own personal information, keep the economy strong, and help secure the nation.”
Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the sole no vote on the committee, has continued his campaign against the legislation for what he (and plenty of other Democrats and some libertarians) sees with the bill. Wyden argued that “any information-sharing legislation that lacks adequate privacy protections is not simply a cybersecurity bill, but a surveillance bill by another name.”