The House passed the controversial CISPA cybersecurity bill on Thursday, defying a White House veto threat and throwing the issue squarely into the Senate’s lap.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers
(R-Mich.) said the bill was “needed to prepare for countries like Iran
and North Korea so that they don’t do something catastrophic to our
networks here in America.”
The final tally was 248-168, enough to pass the measure
but not enough to override the threatened veto. Forty-two Democrats
broke with the White House to vote for the bill, and 28 Republicans
voted against it.
The administration and Democratic critics opposed the bill because of
privacy and civil liberties concerns. The other main sticking point was
that, unlike a Senate bill by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), CISPA would not
mandate new security requirements for a critical infrastructure network.
