The Senate’s New Cybersecurity Bill Threatens Net Neutrality

Cybersecurity bills are normally looked at as being terrible for privacy. But a new one being considered by the Senate has a bonus—it’s still bad for privacy, but it could also kill whatever is left of net neutrality.

Portions of the cybersecurity bill that the Senate is considering, which is modeled on CISPA, could be construed to subvert net neutrality, according to a coalition of civil liberties groups.

The Cybersecurity Act of 2012—the last cybersecurity bill considered by the Senate—had a clause that said nothing in the bill could be “construed to authorize or limit liability for actions that would violate the regulations adopted by the Federal Communications Commission on preserving the open Internet, or any successor regulations thereto, nor to modify or alter the obligations of private entities under such regulations.”

CISA has no such clause. The group notes that terms popular throughout CISA, such as “cybersecurity threat” and “countermeasure” are poorly defined and could be used by service providers to harm the free and open internet.

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