Speaker Boehner said that the White House was in 'a camp all by themselves.' | POLITICO Staff House passes CISPA bill

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.

( Also on POLITICO: War over CISPA)

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.

Although those disagreements still exist, House Republicans have now jumped ahead of the Senate in a race to avoid the political fallout in the event of a major cyberattack.

At least some of CISPA’s Democratic supporters weren’t happy with their colleagues’ opposition to the bill, nor with the White House.

After the White House issued the veto threat Wednesday, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, Rogers’s chief Democratic ally, launched an all-out lobbying effort to persuade his fellow Democrats to back the bill.

“We worked it. We worked it hard, we contacted people personally. Many people I talked to just on the floor,” Ruppersberger of Maryland said after the bill passed. “This [issue] is very complicated, a lot of people didn't understand it.” He said that, as of Thursday morning, he didn’t know how much Democratic support there was for the bill.

“Yesterday was a tough day for me with the White House,” Ruppersberger said.

Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) a CISPA co-sponsor, echoed Ruppersberger.

“It was disappointing, I think it could have been handled differently,” Langevin said of the White House move. “To do it at this stage, I don’t think it was very helpful to get an information-sharing bill through.”

Langevin and other supportive Democrats say CISPA is needed to counter the possibility of a major cyberattack.

"This is not a perfect bill, but the threat is great," Ruppersberger said on the House floor on Thursday.

Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that the White House was in "a camp all by themselves." Nevertheless, most Democrats voted against the bill.

“CISPA would trample the privacy and consumer rights of our citizens while leaving our critical infrastructure vulnerable,” an administration official said Thursday in response to Boehner. “We need Congress to address this critical national and economic security challenge while respecting the values of freedom, privacy, openness and innovation so fundamental to our nation.”

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), formerly the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, voted against the measure.

After the vote, she tweeted: "I voted no on #CISPA-it didn't strike the right balance & #GOP didn't allow amendments to strengthen privacy protections."

The House adopted several amendments to the bill before passing it, including one by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) that added a five-year sunset to the bill.

But lawmakers voted to reject a motion to recommit by Rep. Ed Perlmuttter, who sought to add language specifying that nothing in the bill could be construed to allow employers and the government to mandate that employees and job applicants disclose confidential passwords without a court order. The defeated motion also would have added language saying that nothing in the bill could allow the government to block access to the Web through “the creation of a national Internet firewall similar to the ‘Great Internet Firewall of China.'”

Privacy hawks were disappointed with the outcome of the passage vote.

"Americans should be concerned at the extent to which their privacy will be compromised because of the passage of this bill in the House of Representatives," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "They should be very afraid."

Markey had wanted to offer a floor amendment, with Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), to address privacy concerns, but Republicans did not allow a vote on it.

"I'd just encourage those that voted for [CISPA] to read the 4th Amendment," Barton said.

The tech sector immediately applauded the House action on Thursday.

“We strongly urge the Senate to swiftly take up this issue because the United States cannot afford to wait to improve our nation’s cybersecurity posture,” TechAmerica CEO Shawn Osborne said in a statement. “Standing pat will only further risk our national security.”

But civil libertarians were unhappy with the outcome.

“Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans’ online privacy. As we’ve seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back,” ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson said. “We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”

The Senate is expected to turn to the issue next month.

"Sen. Reid has said as explicitly as he can that we're going to take this up in May,” Lieberman said earlier on Thursday. “I'm glad the House is taking it up now because it's a kind of preface and encouragement for the Senate to act.”

Jonathan Allen contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:13 p.m. on April 26, 2012.