Big Telcos Love CISPA; More Immunity For Violating Our Customers Privacy?!? Sign Us Up!

from the of-course-they-like-it dept

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It's well known that the big telcos and the federal government have an all-too-cozy relationship when it comes to handing over data on telco customers. This has included ignoring all the rules and going so far as handing over information based on a post-it note given to them by the FBI. The telcos general standpoint has been that they're happy to let the government reach deep into their data -- more or less adding a direct tap on all of us . Congress, however, gift-wrapped them immunity to any lawsuits from all of that kind of stuff. Still, these days, the telcos sure do like not being liable for coughing up their customer's private info to the government, so it should come as little surprise that they're practically shoving each other aside to support CISPA.Two major trade groups, CTIA and US Telecom, each issued short statements saying that CISPA is a good thing. US Telecom claimed that the bill would make it more efficient to detect, deter and respond to cyberthreats. That would be nice if true, but no one's yet explained how that actually would work in practice. CTIA knows how to play the press, and started its press release by hyping up recent hack attacks. That CISPA likely would have done absolutely nothing to stop those attacks is conveniently ignored.Meanwhile AT&T and Verizon each offered their own support for the bill, making it clear that protection from liability is the most important thing to them.The telcos, of course, have nothing to lose and everything to gain from CISPA. It gives them even more freedom from liability in sharing your info, but doesn't present any specific regulatory burdens on them. Of course, shouldn't we be a lot more concerned about the views of the people whose privacy would be violated, than the views of those violating their privacy?

Filed Under: cispa, cybersecurity, immunity, information sharing, privacy, telcos

Companies: at&t, ctia, ustelecom, verizon