CISPA vote means companies can't promise to protect privacy

Via  Bill

 

Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican shown in this photo from last year, told his colleagues the privacy amendments weren't in "the spirit" of protecting the United States from cyberattacks.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other Internet companies and e-mail providers will be prohibited from making legally binding promises to protect your privacy, thanks to a vote this afternoon in the U.S. House of Representatives.

 By a 5-8 vote, the House Rules committee rejected a bipartisan fix to the CISPA data-sharing bill that would have ensured companies' privacy promises -- including their terms of use and privacy policies -- remained valid and legally enforceable in the future.

 The vote came after Rep. Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican who's the committee's influential chairman, urged his colleagues to vote against the amendment (PDF). All of the committee's eight GOP members voted against the amendment, and all the Democrats supported it. (See CNET's CISPA FAQ.)

 It also came hours after a formal veto threat from the Obama administration, citing privacy and other concerns about CISPA. A House floor debate is scheduled to begin tomorrow, which now will not include a vote on the amendment.

 "We're disappointed that such a commonsense reform won't even get a vote," Will Adams, a spokesman for Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican who co-sponsored the amendment, told CNET this evening. "When Americans sign up for service with their phone company or their Internet provider they should be entitled to the privacy protections that the companies promise them. Giving companies legal cover to break their contracts with consumers is bad policy and a disservice to the American people."

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