The American Civil Liberties Union had a simple message for Congress today about CISPA or any other plans for sharing internet user information between corporations and government intelligence agencies: keep cybersecurity information sharing out of military hands.

The deadline for a petition submitted to the White House's "We The People" site to stop the passage of the newest version of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is March 15, but the petition has already passed the 100,000 signature threshold needed for the White House to recognize it. The petition expresses concerns that citizens and privacy groups have over the privacy implications of the bill sponsored by Reps.

ReadWriteWeb has an excellent article that gathers the names of all of the organizations and individuals that are either for or against the newest draft of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. While many technology and Internet firms are marked down as supporting the bill, a number of them do so as long as privacy concerns are addressed first.

Internet privacy and advocacy group Demand Progress is continuing its fight against CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) and is mobilizing the Internet community to contact their elected representatives to let them know that they do not care for CISPA. Demand Progress said today that over 90,000 members have expressed their displeasure with CISPA, which was re-introduced last week by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) - without out any changes from last year's bill.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has issued an action alert asking the Internet community to fight against the newest iteration of the Cyber Intelligence Protection and Sharing Act (CIPSA). While the it may be a new year the House bill meant to protect companies and critical infrastructure from cyber "terrorists," and hackers, the bill has not changed at all since it was introduced in 2012.

Happy President's Day! You know, the made-up holiday where we honor two presidents with one half-assed holiday. Don't President Lincoln and President George Washington deserve separate days to be honored properly? Apparently not. Anyway.. on this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the file-sharing case headed to the Supreme Court, the President's executive order on cybersecurity, the latest poll results, and more. Let freedom ring.

The White House yesterday revealed details on President Obama's executive order intended to ramp up the fight against cybersecurity threats to U.S. interests including businesses, the government and critical infrastructure. Surprisingly, the executive order lacks all of the issues associated with the House cybersecurity bill (commonly referred to as CISPA). For one it offers a one-way information sharing provision, meaning that the U.S. government's various intelligence agencies can share information with corporations and businesses that handle critical information.

The House cybersecurity bill that received strong criticism from the White House, privacy groups and the Internet is going to be re-introduced on Wednesday according to The Hill. House Intelligence Committee leaders Reps.

Trade organization the Business Roundtable issued a 32-page report this week backing the approach taken by the House of Representatives to fight cybersecurity threats. That approach, the bill called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), passed the House. The Senate proposed another bill called the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. The House bill passed, but the President didn't think it offered enough protections for American Internet users' privacy rights.

The Inquirer reports that the the Business Software Alliance (BSA) is lamenting the death of Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) after its Senate counterpart - the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 was voted down in the Senate. Prior to that the bill could not get past a filibuster because it didn't have the required 60 votes to overcome it. The latest action on the bill puts the issue to bed for 2012 - at least.

According to a Hill story highlighted by TechDirt, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) will try to make a final push for the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, a bill that would give government departments and law enforcement oversight on corporations in the business of critical infrastructure when it comes to fighting h

Eleven Republican lawmakers have urged President Obama not to go forward with an executive order that would implement cyber security measures without members of Congress, according to Slate.

United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is sounding the alarm bells about cyber terrorist attacks, saying that passing the CISPA bill or enacting some kind of executive order to implement protections are necessary to avoid what he calls "Cyber-Pearl Harbor."

He says that the U.S. should act preemptively to protect "national interests in cyberspace" by working fastidiously on some sort of safeguards for critical infrastructure.

Throwing out the specter of a new cyber threat from a country not usually associated with such activities, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chair of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, is making a final push to get the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act through the lame duck session of Congress by saying that this threat from an unnamed source is on the horizon. In a speech this week before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Rogers tried to play up the threat and claimed urgency for the adoption of CISPA or something like it.

A new bill being secretly passed around to certain members of the European Parliament is making headlines today because of its eerie similarities to legislation like SOPA, CISPA and ACTA. The bill is called "CleanIT," and it is currently in the early stages of being refined. But the draft has been leaked to the public, much to the chagrin of its main supporters and it has a lot of horrible provisions.

The Hill is reporting that, despite the setbacks with cybersecurity legislation in the Senate last month, the White House is continuing to push forward on a "go-it-alone" path to enact some sort of measures that they feel are an imperative to protect critical infrastructure from hackers and other nefarious individuals.

Internet advocacy group Demand Progress launched a campaign this week to urge Democrats and Republican lawmakers to make a commitment - in writing - that they will protect internet freedom when creating new legislation and to make the issue part of their respective platforms.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That seems to be the mantra coming out of the White House this week following Friday's defeat of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. According to The Hill, President Obama is weighing the possibility of issuing an executive order to deal with cyber threats to computer systems that control "critical infrastructure."

A letter from various advocacy groups sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) urge the leaders of the Senate to add the amendment offered by Al Franken (D-Minnesota) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. The Franken-Paul amendment would remove Section 701 from the bill. Section 701 gives corporations the authority to monitor the activity of internet users and use counter-measures against traffic they decide is engaged in "cyber threat" activity.

In a conference call for reporters on August 1 put together by the White House, some heavy hitters in the administration urged passage of the Senate bill, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Four top U.S. officials took part in the call: John Brennan, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; Gen. Keith Alexander, commander, U.S. Cyber Command, and director, National Security Agency; Jane Holl Lute, deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Eric Rosenbach, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy.

SCARY! That's how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) describes the lack of progress on the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. While senators offer amendments on everything from gun control to abortion bans and Obamacare to the bill, progress on the bill has come to a screeching halt.

"It’s scary that we’re not doing something on this bill,” Reid said on the floor Wednesday morning. "The nation’s top security experts have said a cyber 9/11 is imminent."

Open Congress offers some biting commentary on why - even after a myriad of amendments have been offered to make it more palatable to those worried about privacy - the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 is bad news. The non-profit, non-partisan public resource that tracks how political influence is bought with campaign funds says that it cannot support the bill unless one important amendment is made.

As debate begins and amendments are offered on the Cybersecurity Act Of 2012, the bill may end up going through some fundamental changes that will make it more palatable for those who oppose many of its murkier provisions. So far over 70 amendments have been offered to the bill that aims to protect critical infrastructure in the United States through government oversight.

Internet rights advocacy and lobbying group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has an interesting article offering five reasons why the National Security Agency (NSA) shouldn't be trusted to run whatever cybersecurity oversight comes out if the Senate passes the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 and manages to reconcile it with the House's Cyber Intelligence Security Protection Act (CISPA).

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and the co-sponsors of his Cybersecurity Act of 2012 are not pleased with the conservative lobbying group the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and are firing back at the group for what they call "mischaracterizations" about the latest revisions to the bill. More specifically, Senator Lieberman is upset over a letter that the group sent to U.S. Senators urging them not to support the bill. The group opposes the further regulations the bill would put on U.S.

Senators Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Barbara Boxer (CA), Jack Reed (RI), Bob Menendez (NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Schumer (NY) and Dianne Feinstein (CA) submitted an amendment to the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 which would limit real-world gun rights. The language intends to make ownership or transfer of magazines (and other ammunition-feeding devices capable of holding ten or more bullets) illegal.

President Barack Obama yesterday urged members of the U.S. Senate to pass the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 and encouraged representatives of Congress to draft and pass a similar bill quickly, saying:

Update: We erroneously reported that the 1000th episode of Monday Night RAW would be airing live from Las Vegas next week (the show was in Las Vegas this week). The milestone episode of WWE's flagship program will actually be live from St. Lois, Missouri. We apologize for the error and have updated the story to reflect the corrections.

Normally we would ignore what's going on at Twitter (not because we don't care but because the daily machinations of the service have no bearing within these pages), but a change in policy is of particular interest - mainly in how it might relate to current and future cybersecurity bills - like CISPA, PROTECT IT, and the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. Like Google, Twitter has decided to disclose how often the U.S. government asks for information on a user or issues a DMCA takedown via what they call a new "transparency tool."

In an age where acronyms such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, CISPA, CSA, and more put fear into the hearts of Internet users all over the globe it's time that someone stand up and clearly define what rights we should have on the Internet. Like the Continental Congress did when America declared Independence way back in 1776, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) and other advocacy groups have come up with our own version of a "Declaration" for the Internet age.