The U.S Senate is mulling to debate on the promulgation of the Cyber Intelligence and Sharing Act (CISA), formerly known as CISPA as a law. It is a long debated cybersecurity bill that was first taken into consideration in the year 2012. This is the fifth time Congress is willing to pass the bill to allow organizations to share users’ personal data with the government. However, this time it is being expected that the U.S President Obama will sign it if it ends up on his desk.

Leaders of the Republican Party hold the opinion that they want CISA to be presented in the American Senate next week before the Summer break. However, some senators want the debate on the bill to commence in early August. Moreover, leaders like Mitchel McConnell are keeping their cards close to themselves. .

In lead up to the debate regarding the promulgation of this bill, policy makers have spent the last week in preparing their points of opinion that can be associated with CISA. However, the clause of the cybersecurity bill will be debated in the senate because thousands of people and non-profits are questioning the sanctity of the bill, vis-a-vis whether it l will protect civil liberties and privacy or is it a spying bill disguised as a “cybersecurity” bill.

This bill will not only give internet companies the legal rights to share personal data of their users with government organizations, but would also allow federal agencies to monitor domestic traffic for their warrantless mass surveillance schemes.

New America’s Open Technology Institute claims “CISA would seriously threaten privacy and civil liberties, and could undermine cybersecurity, rather than enhance it.”

It would allow the giant internet companies, which have access to the data of millions of people, to do whatever they want with the data. Hence, the government can pressurize them to share personal information of people with spying agencies.

Many privacy advocate groups are protesting against CISA to keep personal data private. They have sent millions of emails and have made thousands of phone calls to Washington D.C. in protest but the lawmakers have turned a deaf ear to their protesting calls.