The Senate Intelligence Committee cleared the Cybersecurity Information...

The Senate Intelligence Committee cleared the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) Tuesday on a 12-3 vote after a closed markup. The bill is widely seen as an analogue to the House-passed Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (HR-624) that includes more stringent privacy protections. Privacy groups have criticized CISA, despite those additional privacy protections (CD June 26 p8). Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a joint statement that they were two of the votes against CISA. The bill “lacks adequate protections for the privacy rights of law-abiding Americans, and that it will not materially improve cybersecurity,” they said. A revised version of the bill in the form of a manager’s amendment included what the committee said were strengthened privacy protections and clarifications to authorization language. Senate Intelligence approved an amendment from Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., that would require the attorney general to determine a “specific limitation” on how long federal agencies can retain cyber threat information shared under CISA. The committee adopted three amendments from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. One amendment would allow cyberthreat information sharing for the “protection of minors,” while another would require the actions performed under the bill to conform with the Fair Information Practice Principles included in President Barack Obama’s cybersecurity strategy. The third Collins amendment would allow the Department of Defense to share cyberthreat information it receives from defense contractors. Senate Intelligence approved an amendment from Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, that would include national laboratories among the federal agencies the director of national intelligence must consult during development of procedures for government information sharing with the private sector. The committee also approved an amendment from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., requiring the director of national intelligence to submit a report to Congress on cyberintelligence cooperation. Senate Intelligence said it will release the full text of the marked up version of CISA later this week.