The American Library Association (ALA) urged senators to oppose the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA, S. 754), the organization said in a statement Wednesday.
The ALA is concerned CISA will both not be effective in countering cyberattacks and grant new broad data collection powers to federal, state, and local government agencies.
Sari Feldman, president of the ALA, pressed members of the Senate to join with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“When librarians oppose a bill with ‘information sharing’ in its name you can be sure that the bill is decidedly more than advertised. In fact, as Sens. Wyden, Paul and Sanders have courageously pointed out in opposition to it, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act would dramatically over-share the personal information of tens of millions of Americans who depend upon library computer networks, and could function, as a practical matter, as a new warrantless surveillance tool,” Feldman said in a statement.
The ALA was a signatory to an April letter opposing CISA, joining with 54 other civil society organizations, security experts, and academics.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) dispute such characterization and strongly support the bill.
“Despite strong bipartisan support in the committee and the Senate, and support from the administration and the business community, there are some groups that are opposing the bill out of a knee-jerk reaction against any communication between the government and industry. If these special interest groups are successful in mischaracterizing this bill, which authorizes purely voluntary sharing, they will only succeed in allowing more personal information to be compromised to criminals and foreign countries,” Burr and Feinstein said in a joint statement Oct. 2.
Burr and Feinstein highlighted compliance with CISA is “entirely voluntary” and it creates a cybersecurity information sharing environment that allows participants to get a better understanding of current threats.