Bill Description

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) would legalize and legitimize the unconstitutional sharing of private user data by internet companies and the federal government. The bill would realistically create an exemption that would allow companies to hold private user data and choose to share that data with the National Security Agency or other federal agencies. CISPA therefore allows companies to functionally spy on American citizens and pass that information along to the government without any form of judicial oversight. The bill does not provide guidelines regarding what data can be collected or transferred and even provided companies immunity from legal action for passing the information along. CISPA would allow the creation of a covert digital data-sharing and storing network between big business and big government and at the expense of all Americans.

Liberty for All's Position

Laws like CISPA directly challenge our self-ownership and represent a major threat to the principles upon which are nation is founded. Liberty For All recognizes the need to keep America safe, but CISPA makes the nation weaker, further erodes our founding principles, and, as many experts have recently noted, does little to make us safer. In addition to being a bad law, CISPA is a wholly unconstitutional violation of the Fourth (and potentially Fifth) Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. The law is vague, can be employed for almost any purpose, shields companies from legal liability for spying, and will be used for a variety of uses that have nothing to do with security threats to our nation. Personal privacy, self-autonomy, and the derivative rights that grow from both are core values of our nation and CISPA would undo both for little to no benefit. As Benjamin Franklin once said - those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. Liberty For All stands for public safety measures that not only protect us from threats but also preserve and defend both the Constitution and the principles upon which it stands.