Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has amended a proposed amendment
to CISPA, the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act, to make it clear
that industry can use automated processes to remove personally identifiable information
prior to sharing cyberthreat info with each other and government.
That came in submitting the amendment to the Rules Committee
Tuesday, which is setting the rules for House floor debate Wednesday and
Thursday on CISPA. Schiff tried unsuccessfully to get the amendment adopted in
markup of the bill last year, which is why he tweaked the amendment to clarify
that the information could still be shared in real time via automatic
processes.
Republicans have been concerned that the requirement of
removing PII before sharing could slow sharing when time is of the essence.
Schiff was one of a quartet of Democratic legislators who
said that without that and other changes to the Republican-backed bill, theycould not support it.
Republicans have also made changes to the bill
to try and make it more palatable to Democrats, but it remains to be seen whether
there can be a meeting of the minds, though both sides are agreed that cyberthreats
are growing and security needs to be beefed up.
