Ron Paul on CISPA bill

Earlier attempts to pass two bills SOPA and PIPA that would have enabled the U.S. Justice Dept. to shut down websites and/or search engines were shelved after public protests. The sites could have been shut down if they did not cooperate sufficiently with the war on terror or were accused of copyright infringements.

However, the U.S. government has not given up trying to control the Internet. The government wants government controls and filters on the flow of information. While Paul is correct, corporations also want to control communication and data flow as well under the rubric of intellectual property rights. In fact the government bills serve corporations and their profits as much as the government itself.

A new bill has the acronym CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act). According to Paul it would allow both the government and private corporations to view supposedly private on line communications with no judicial oversight. Of course it must all be done for reasons of cybersecurity. The bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security access to an individuals' on line communications..The wording si so broad it could be used for purposes extending much beyond cyberterrorism.

As Paul points out the bill involves close collaboration between large corporations such as Google and Facebook and the government. The corporations will hand over information about you with no warrant or judicial review. Since the corporations may be breaking laws such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act they are conveniently given immunity from lawsuits when they hand over the information. Obviously your rights can be violated by Google or Facebook but you have no recourse. It is just part of the price you pay for fighting terrorism or perhaps for living in a developing police state. For more see this article.