Bianca Bosker, Huffington Post executive tech editor, and Michelle Richardson, counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office, react to news that the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 failed to receive the 60 Senate votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster.
“Anybody who’s anybody in the national security world is telling us that we’re headed for some sort of Bruce Willis disaster scenario and that it really is a matter of not if, but when,” Bosker says.
“The bill actually turned out pretty decent as far as privacy was concerned,” Richardson says, explaining why the ACLU supported the Cybersecurity Act. “A number of Republicans opposing the bill saying that it actually went too far on privacy and that they preferred an approach that would allow the companies more leeway to decide whether our privacy would be protected.”
Spitzer asks why the issue of privacy seems to have faded from political debate. “The government is getting away with these programs because they’re being conducted in secret,” Richardson explains. “As you see more and more information becoming available about what they’re getting and what they’re doing with our information, you’re going to see the public pushing back more.”
