American Civil Liberties Union

We've written extensively about CISPA over the last year, but since the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is set to mark the bill up next week, and the full House to vote on it the week after that, we're dissecting its shortcomings. Information sharing isn't offensive per se; it's really a question of what can be shared, with whom, and what corporations and government agencies can do with it. Yesterday we told you what could be shared (read: your personally identifiable information) and today we discuss where that information ends up.

As we've told you many times, we believe the FISA Amendments Act is unconstitutional and have taken it to the Supreme Court . There’s not a vote in sight in the Senate. Frankly, that’s not a bad thing. We won't be disappointed if it sunsets on Dec. 31, as scheduled.

However, it's likely the Senate will eventually vote to reauthorize FISA, and its extraordinary authority to collect international communications coming in and out of the U.S. without a warrant. But senators Wyden, Leahy, Merkley and Tester are working hard to offer amendments that would increase transparency about the use of this very powerful spying law and insert common- sense protections for Americans' information.

Cybersecurity legislation is on the Senate floor at this very moment, and critical votes could start as early as this evening. Here’s your primer on what’s at stake and how we expect things to go down.

Where are we in the process? Sen. Reid filed cloture on the bill last night, which means he’s ready to try for that 60-vote procedural threshold (which, according to the Senate rules, will determine whether they will move on and fully consider the bill). If he doesn’t strike a deal with Republicans sometime today, that vote will happen tomorrow morning. If his gamble pays off and he gets his 60 votes, the Senate will then turn to amendments, and hold the final vote by Friday. Of course, if there are not 60 votes, the bill is done for now, with a big question mark of what will happen when Congress comes back in the fall.

Yesterday, Republican Senators introduced a rewrite of their cybersecurity bill, known as SECURE IT. Advocates registered their opposition to the bill last month and its CISPA-like expansion of military authority to collect sensitive information on Americans’ internet use.  

Despite claims the contrary, the new bill has not been substantially amended and still does not meaningfully limit the amount or type of information that the government can collect from companies that hold very private and personal data. Most importantly,