GOP presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, called the Cyber Intelligence...

asking them to “address real and serious privacy concerns voiced by Americans, privacy advocacy groups, and colleagues in Congress.” HR-3523 will put “the resources of the private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people,” Paul said (http://xrl.us/bm4xu3). Calling CISPA the “new SOPA,” the Stop Online Piracy Act that was derailed in the face of strong opposition, Paul said CISPA is the “latest assault” on Internet freedom, “an Internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight -- provided of course if they do so in the name ‘cybersecurity.'” He said people should call their lawmakers and “urge them to oppose CISPA and similar bills that attack Internet freedom.” Meanwhile, House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and 17 of his party colleagues wrote House Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., saying the manager’s amendment that they were developing should address the “real and serious” privacy concerns raised by lawmakers, privacy groups and others. Saying the bill lacks “necessary safeguards,” they said the “broad and ambiguous” language of CISPA raises “serious concerns” about what information relating to Internet activity would be shared, who in the federal government, including the intelligence community, would have access to the information, and the “purpose and manner in which that information will be used.” Without specific limitations, the measure would, for the first time, provide non-civilian federal agencies such as the National Security Agency “unfettered access to information about Americans’ Internet activities and allow those agencies to use that information for virtually any purpose,” the 18 lawmakers said (http://xrl.us/bm4xvh). Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., separately said he'd offer an amendment to CISPA that would add privacy language minimizing the “collection of publicly identifiable information.” Information sharing procedures would have to be reviewed and approved by the U.S. attorney general. The language also would limit the purposes for which a federal agency could use cybersecurity information. However, three industry groups urged passage of CISPA and three other bills, saying “cybersecurity policy needs to be flexible and adaptable, given the difficulty of predicting the manner and means by which network providers will have to respond to cybersecurity threats.” The NCTA, CTIA and USTelecom in a joint letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the government should rely on industry “best practices to establish appropriate cybersecurity measures rather than impose prescriptive rules.” The groups also urged passage of HR-3834, the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act; HR-2096, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act; and HR-4257, the Federal Information Security Amendments Act.