Yesterday I allowed some Congress members and security types to speculate about what legislation might move in the wake of Boston revelations. We don’t have those revelations, but we do have a security bill—written long before the attacks—sliding through Congress with alacrity. Cory Doctorow has a good roundup of links on CISPA, the tech security bill that just got through the House Rules Committee. That Rules Committee meeting made news mostly because of this moment.
But the story most people missed was a failed attempt to limit CISPA’s reach. Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning member in his second term, proposed amendments that would have codified companies’ privacy standards, limiting the ability of investigators to access data without warrants. That got the vote of every Democrat and of Georgia Rep. Rob Woodall, but it failed.
