The backers of the Senate Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) made a host of changes, some 20 in 14 amendments, to try and make it more acceptable to the privacy groups who say they can't support, or are violently opposed, to the bill in its present form.
It does not seem to have assuaged those parties.
Anti-CISA groups said they planned to protest outside the Capitol Building Thursday night (Oct. 22).
Fight for the Future, Restore the Fourth, and CODEPINK are organizing the protest. Those are the same groups that earlier this year say they flooded the Senate Fax machines with protest messages over CISA.
Bill backer Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday that the changes to the bill—including making clear information could not be used for other than cyber threat-related purposes and installing redundant oversight of personal information scrubbing—should demonstrate that it is not a surveillance bill to those groups, unless their goal in protesting so vigorously was to kill the bill outright, rather than make it better.
Fight for the Future made it clear it did not feel assuaged in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
"It's outrageous that Congress is even considering passing a law that would further erode Internet users' privacy and security at a time when both are already so fragile," it said. "CISA's supporters have repeatedly claimed that the tech industry needs this legislation, but now nearly every major tech company has come out opposing it, not only because they know it won't stop cyber attacks, but also because it's supremely unpopular with their users."
