2 Strikes to CISPA

So for the second time around CISPA has passed in the House, received a veto threat from our President, and utterly failed to go anywhere in the Senate.  I am of mixed thoughts about how the Senate handled the issue, I would have loved to see it soundly voted out, but I also know that had it come to a vote it may have passed.  Last year we saw several large legislative pushes against online privacy, and for each one I saw floods of reaction and awareness raising across my social networking feeds.

This year, not so much.

The website blackout protest barely registered to many users, and the active individual commentators seem missing.  Of course the usual alert messages from various civil liberties groups appeared in my inbox, but the overwhelming wave of internet user protest just never built up.  Even the news coverage was less robust this year.

I have no doubt that CISPA (or other very similar piece of legislation) will be introduced again in the near future.  Vote tallies show a slight increase in the number of votes "Yes" in the House of Representatives.  The tug and pull of privacy control has been all over the place.  I operate under the assumption that nothing I post on the web is truly private, but that doesn't mean I want fewer barriers in data farming.  This manifests itself in several ways, including my choices in web browsers and my withdrawal from Goodreads after the purchase by Amazon.

Next time around, how much attention will CISPA (or the offspring of CISPA) receive?  How much attention will we give it?

Additional Reading:
What is CISPA, and why should you care? (PC Mag)
'Dead for now:' CISPA halted in the Senate (RT.com)
CISPA, SOPA, and the Next Acronym (LibrarianShipwreck)
ACLU: CISPA Is Dead (For Now) (U.S. News & World Report)

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