On CISPA, John Boehner said the W.H. was in 'a camp all by themselves.' | JAY WESTCOTT/POLITICO Boehner knocks W.H. on CISPA move

House Speaker John Boehner fired back at the White House veto threat to CISPA on Thursday, stressing that the administration is in "a camp all by themselves."

With debate on the bill about to begin, Boehner told reporters at a press conference that a wide variety of cybersecurity stakeholders "understand we can't have the government in charge of the Internet.”


“The bills we're moving this week are common-sense steps that would allow people to communicate with each other, to work together, to build the walls that are necessary in order to prevent cyberterrorism from occurring," Boehner said.

The administration Wednesday issued a threat to veto CISPA — the bill spearheaded by Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) — if it remained in its current form.

Their proposal, however, is likely to change: Both authors support a number of amendments, including a few that would add to the bill new privacy protections and restrict the government’s use of data it obtains.

Boehner rebuked the White House for its veto threat. Of the House's work on CISPA, Boehner said the proposal is "a fundamentally different approach from what the White House and some want to do in terms of creating this monster here in Washington to control what we would see and not see on the Internet."

The speaker did acknowledge, however, that there are "more steps that are going to have to be taken beyond these" to address cyberthreats.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 12:50 p.m. on April 26, 2012.

This article tagged under: John Boehner

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