No NSA monitoring in McCain cyber bill, seems better on privacy than Lieberman-Collins

After the NSA's aggressive pursuit of a greater role in civilian cybersecurity, and last week's statement by Sen. John McCain criticizing the Lieberman-Collins bill for not including a role for the agency, some feared that the new G.O.P. cybersecurity bill would allow the military agency to gather information about U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. So, it's refreshing to see that the bill introduced today–the SECURE IT Act of 2012–does not include NSA monitoring of Internet traffic, which would have been very troubling from a civil liberties perspective.

In fact, this new alternative goes further on privacy than the Liberman-Collins bill. It limits the type of information ISPs and other critical infrastructure providers can share with law enforcement. Without such limits, "information sharing" could become a back door for government surveillance. With these limits in place, information sharing is certainly preferable to the more regulatory route taken by the Liberman-Collins bill.

It seems to me that despite Sen. McCain's stated preference for an NSA role, the G.O.P. alternative is looking to address the over-breadth of the Lieberman-Collins bill without introducing any new complications. The SECURE IT bill is also more in line with the approach taken by the House, so it would make reaching consensus easier.

I'll be posting more here as I learn about the bill.

Cross posted from JerryBrito.com