Forget privacy reforms, CISPA is coming back on Wednesday in its exact previous form

According to reporting in The Hill’s Hillicon Valley blog, cybersecurity bill CISPA is heading back to the House on Wednesday, without privacy reformations. By returning as it was before, CISPA is inviting another veto threat the from President, and one more round of cold treatment by the Senate.

The President is expected to issue an executive order on cybsecurity following his coming State of the Union address. The issue will thus, presumably, come up in the speech.

CISPA was tipped to be coming back to the House, but with changes. As TNW reported last week, it appeared that the White House was working with Reps. Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger on plugging privacy holes in the bill that could see private electronic data from normal folks end up in the hands of the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies.

That isn’t going to happen. As The Hill’s blog post states: “The bill that Rogers and Ruppersberger plan to introduce next week will be identical to the version of CISPA that passed the House last spring.”

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Placing this into context, the bill was considered toxic enough that during its ramming through the House on an accelerated schedule, it lost a half-dozen cosponsors, who in the end voted against the very bill they had claimed to support.

And it was kaput on hello in the Senate, which was hard at work on its own – ultimately doomed – cybersecurity bill. The President threatened a veto for CISPA over its glaring privacy flaws, but that wasn’t exactly needed, as it never came close to his desk.

That the bill is being reintroduced without changes is somewhat frustrating. This bill will pass the House, it would seem. But it has no chance in the Senate, or presumably the Oval Office. Thus it’s an exercise in grandstanding, even if its two chief backers are from different parties.

Given the strong complaint from Congress concerning the President’s executive order plan, this could be a response. The President speaks on Tuesday. CISPA will be brought back up in the House on Wednesday.

Top Image Credit: Andrew Malone