CTIA's semi-annual survey, that was released Friday, April 13th, showed the astounding result of a 123 percent increase in data traffic on the nation’s wireless networks.
The statistics highlighted in the survey underscore the significance of what will transpire this week in the U.S. House of Representatives as it is set to consider a number of measures intended to enhance America’s ability to avoid cyber-attacks and protect consumers.
As noted in Vice President of Government Affairs Jot Carpenter’s blog post, the centerpiece of this week’s activity will be consideration of the bipartisan Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (H.R. 3523)
. CISPA is the single most important thing Congress can do to help improve our nation’s cybersecurity profile.
In order to handle the significant demand by consumers to access the mobile Internet anytime and anywhere, improved cybersecurity is a cornerstone to the industry’s value to the nation’s economy and consumers. The good news is that the wireless industry has a wealth of expertise, existing technology and standards and resources that focus on cybersecurity 24/7. The tools contained in CISPA are critical to unleash the technical resources that the wireless industry and government can bring to bear on the challenge without expanding the scope of the regulatory regime or an expenditure of all too scarce federal resources.
Without compromise to privacy, enactment of CISPA will promote greater cybersecurity by permitting the private sector to leverage its own cyber resources in a coordinated way with government entities through information sharing thereby improving protection for the nation’s systems, networks and consumers.
The cybersecurity marketplace should be a hallmark of innovation for the nation. CISPA will lead to expanded research, service offerings and more jobs for cybersecurity experts. CISPA will grow the pool of resources and expand the spectrum of technologies that the wireless industry can draw from for the benefit of consumers and the nation’s economy.
One Response to “CTIA’s Semi-Annual Survey Underscores Importance of CISPA” Leave a reply ›
Have you guys actually read this bill?
Congress is considering legislation that would create backdoor wiretaps into our daily communications. These “cybersecurity” bills would give companies a free pass to monitor and collect communications, including huge amounts of personal data like your text messages and emails. Companies could ship that data wholesale to the government or anyone else provided they claim it was for "cybersecurity purposes."
Under Rep. Mike Rogers’ Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (CISPA),and Sen. John McCain’s SECURE IT Act, there are almost no restrictions on what information can be spied upon and how it can be used. That means a company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your emails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and modify those communications or prevent them from reaching their destination if it fits into their plan to stop “cybersecurity” threats.
Worst of all, the stated definition of "cybersecurity purpose" is so broad that it leaves the door open to censor any speech that a company believes would "degrade the network." Parts of the proposed legislation specifically state that cybersecurity purpose includes protecting against the theft or misappropriation of private or government information. Such sweeping language would give companies and the government a powerful weapon to use against whistleblower websites like WikiLeaks.
Congress wants to use the threat of "cybersecurity" to undermine our Constitutional rights. Tell your lawmakers that we won’t stand for dangerous, unsupervised information sharing under the guise of cybersecurity.