At the same time that the political theater of the latest Benghazi hearing in the House was going on, the Senate was debating the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, or CISA.

Although nominally about cybersecurity, the bill, its critics rightfully argue, would be more accurately called a surveillance bill.

Back in April, a group of over 50 advocacy groups and security experts wrote to the Senate opposing the bill and its complement in the House. Here's the Electronic Frontier Foundation explaining why CISA (the Senate bill) and PCNA (the House bill) are bad for civil liberties:



The two bills are part of a slew of cybersecurity bills that have been introduced in Congress this year that are ostensibly intended to facilitate more information sharing about computer security threats from the private sector to the government. But the bills aren't about "information sharing." They're about surveillance. The bill's vague definition and broad legal immunity for new spying powers will facilitate a potentially enormous amount of unrelated personal information to government agencies like the NSA. The bills' immunity provisions could even increase the militarization of the internet by encouraging companies to conduct computer network exfiltration attacks on adversary's computers. To make matters worse, companies are granted broad legal immunity leaving them free to share the information without being concerned about what it might be used for. And as one of the letters points out: "CISA allows everyday police to use the information to investigate crimes that have nothing to do with cybersecurity, such as robbery, arson, and carjacking."

“Any information-sharing legislation that lacks adequate privacy protections is not simply a cybersecurity bill, but a surveillance bill by another name,” Wyden said, in dissenting views on the bill released today. “I opposed this bill because I believe its insufficient privacy protections will lead to large amounts of personal information being shared with the government even when that information is not needed for cybersecurity.”

Ron Wyden (D-OR), the sole dissenting vote in the Senate Intelligence Committee back in April, roundly condemned the bill: Tech companies like Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation have also come out against the bill, as has the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

The cloture motion passed 83 to 14.

The 14 dissenting votes consisted of 1 Republican--Rand Paul (R-KY)--and then 13 members of the Democratic caucus.

Here are the 13:

Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)

Cory Booker (D-NJ)

Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Chris Coons (D-DE)

Al Franken (D-MN)

Pat Leahy (D-VT)

Ed Markey (D-MA)

Bob Menendez (D-NJ)

Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Tom Udall (D-NM)

Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

Ron Wyden (D-OR)