CISPA, State Farm’s Strong Stand, Double Jeopardy & the Supreme Court
Today in the News
CYBER INTELLIGENCE SHARING & PROTECTION ACT – RYAN RADIA
Wall Street Journal: ‘Modest’ Doesn’t Describe the CISPA
Facilitating voluntary information sharing is a vastly superior approach to bolstering America’s cyber defenses than the new regulatory mandates backed by President Obama and Sen. Joe Lieberman. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act would help untangle the web of federal laws that impede companies from sharing information about cyber threats with other companies and the government.
CISPA, however, is anything but “modest.” While its sponsors emphasize “voluntary” information sharing, the bill would cannibalize private contracts between cloud-computing providers and their customers, including many small businesses. Like Mr. Lieberman’s bill, CISPA contains a sweeping immunity provision that would let companies break their promises not to divulge information they promised to keep private. For truly voluntary information sharing to work—and for the cloud computing revolution to realize its vast potential—Internet providers must be able to make enforceable promises about when they’ll share user information and with whom.
AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL (ALEC) – JOHN BERLAU
Openmarket.org: Stand with State Farm as it Stands with ALEC
“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” For decades, that has been the famous slogan for the nation’s largest home and auto insurer, which serves more than 80 million customers.
But State Farm hasn’t just been a good neighbor to its policy holders. It has also been neighborly in supporting a robust public policy debate. While Walmart just became the latest company to cave to pressure from the leftist mob and drop its support from the center-right American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), State Farm has bravely stood firm in its funding for ALEC.
SUPREME COURT – HANS BADER
The Supreme Court recently weakened constitutional protections against double jeopardy in Blueford v. Arkansas, a homicide case. The 6-to-3 decision was written by Chief Justice Roberts. It allowed a defendant to be retried for murder — not just manslaughter — even though the jury forewoman had reported that the jurors had unanimously rejected murder charges and were deadlocked on the lesser manslaughter count.