Rep. Justin Amash, Michigan Republican, on Wednesday proposed repealing cybersecurity legislation included in the last-minute spending bill recently passed by Congress.

Mr. Amash said he already garnered bipartisan support in the House and Senate with respect to H.R. 4350, a newly offered proposal that would repeal what he called a “cyber surveillance measure” tucked into the omnibus spending plan that lawmakers passed last month to avert a government shutdown.

After repeated attempts at passing federal cybersecurity legislation proved to be unsuccessful, lawmakers managed to tack a provision onto the 2,009-page spending bill approved last month which in turn has allowed private sector entities to share cyber-threat information with government agencies.

Having been the product of hurried, closed-door negotiations, however, the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 quickly drew fire from privacy advocates, including Mr. Amash, who accused the bill of broadening the government’s ability to conduct online eavesdropping.

“It’s the worst anti-privacy law since the USA PATRIOT Act, and we should repeal it as soon as possible,” Mr. Amash said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Cybersecurity Act facilitates unconstitutional, warrantless surveillance on law-abiding Americans,” his office added. “The law grants immunity from liability to companies that share employees’ or users’ private information with the government or other companies, as long as they do so under the guise of cybersecurity. It places no limits on the type of information that can be shared, which could include individuals’ personal online communications, and it allows the government to use the information it receives for purposes unrelated to cybersecurity, including the investigation and prosecution of unrelated crimes. The law, which was modeled after the Senate’s controversial Cyber Information Sharing Act (CISA), has been panned by industry leaders across the political spectrum as dangerous to privacy and security.”

If passed, H.R. 4350 would repeal the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 completely. The bill was introduced in the House on Jan, 8. On Wednesday, it was referred by the House Homeland Security Committee to the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies.

Rep. John Conyer, Michigan Democrat; Rep. Zoe Lofgren, California Democrat; Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican; Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican; and Rep. Jared Polis, Colorado Democrat, have given the proposal their support, Mr. Amash’s office said in a statement.

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