Janice Schakowsky: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise today to oppose the rule and the underlying bill, despite my genuine concern…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise today to oppose the rule and the underlying bill, despite my genuine concern for cybersecurity. I believe that despite some positive changes by the chairman and ranking member it still fails to adequately safeguard the privacy of Americans, and that is why I am the one that voted against it in committee. We absolutely can combat the serious threat by cyberattacks and still ensure that we are protecting not only our computer systems, but also the civil liberties of Americans. As the Obama administration wrote yesterday in opposition to this bill, ``cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive.'' I am particularly concerned because this legislation has the potential of exposing personal information of customers that may be shared both with the government and between companies. The Obama administration writes that the bill ``lacks sufficient limitations on the sharing of personally identifiable information between private entities.'' I offered an amendment to simply require companies to make reasonable efforts to remove information unrelated to the cybersecurity threat which can be used to identify specific persons. Even with this basic standard for compliance, the big private companies refused to make the effort, and my amendment was not made in order. Further, the bill allows the U.S. military to directly receive cyberinformation on Americans.…”