House passes CISPA bill

"At the end of the day, personal information is customer information, and maintaining trust with customers is a core business imperative," Molino added.

Privacy groups also objected to the bill because they said it would give the National Security Agency a front-row seat in analyzing data from private computer networks. The bill doesn't address the NSA's role specifically, but it's presumed that the military intelligence agency would have a central role in the data-sharing program because of its technical expertise in tracking foreign-based hackers.

Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois had tried to amend the bill to prohibit the military from collecting threat data directly from industry. But that proposal also was blocked from floor debate amid GOP objections. Still facing a veto threat, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, worked with Democrats on a measure that would ensure that companies go first through the Department of Homeland Security. While that proposal was adopted, the American Civil Liberties Group and others still were not satisfied.

The White House had asserted in its statement that any information from the private sector should enter the government through a civilian agency, namely the Department of Homeland Security.

"We have long said that information sharing improvements are essential to effective legislation, but they must include proper privacy and civil liberties protections, reinforce the appropriate roles of civilian and intelligence agencies and include targeted liability protections," said White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden in a statement.

A similar version of the bill passed the House a year ago by a 248-168 vote. But that bill also had prompted a veto threat and never gained traction in the Senate.

Rogers has said he thinks the political calculus has changed and that China's hacking campaign was too brazen for the White House to justify the status quo.

"There's a line around the Capitol building of companies willing to come in and tell us in a classified setting (that) 'my whole intellectual property portfolio is gone,'" Rogers said. "I've never seen anything like this, where we aren't jazzed and our blood pressure isn't up."

In February, Obama signed an executive order that would help develop voluntary industry standards for protecting networks. But the White House and Congress agreed that legislation was still needed to address the legal liability companies face if they share threat information. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised at the time to advance a bipartisan proposal "as soon as possible," although one hasn't emerged.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is expected to take the lead on a cybersecurity proposal that would likely address the issue of information sharing but also take up other issues including ways to improve research and development. A panel spokesman said Rockefeller intended to work with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., to introduce a plan to committee members "in the near future."

Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report.

Previous

1 | 2