[iwar] [fc:Environmental.groups.protest.cybersecurity.information.sharing.bill]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-12-04 11:10:01

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Message-Id: <200112041910.fB4JA1115773@red.all.net>
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 11:10:01 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Environmental.groups.protest.cybersecurity.information.sharing.bill]
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Environmental groups protest cybersecurity information sharing bill 
By Drew Clark, National Journal's Technology Daily, 12/4/2001
<a href="http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1201/120301td1.htm">http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1201/120301td1.htm> 

More than a dozen environmental groups recently have joined civil
liberties and consumer protection groups in their longstanding fight
against legislation designed to spur the disclosure of cybersecurity
information. 
The environmental groups' vigorous campaign against the bill, S. 1456,
has breathed new life into the opposition and could trigger a fight on
Capitol Hill between environmentalists and the technology
industry--which in the Clinton era prided themselves on empathy with
environmentalists. Industry strongly backs the cybersecurity bill,
introduced by Republican Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah and Jon Kyl of
Arizona.

The bill would provide businesses with exemptions from the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA), antitrust prosecution, and lawsuits that could
stem from the voluntary disclosure of cybersecurity information to
regulatory and enforcement agencies. Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and James
Moran, D-Va., have introduced similar House legislation, but one
environmental group said that measure is much narrower than Bennett-Kyl.

Joined by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Center
for Democracy and Technology (CDT), OMB Watch and others, the
environmental groups last week sent a letter to senators, saying that
the bill "does not fulfill its stated purpose of protecting critical
infrastructure information," or the type of cyber information likely to
be subject to attack. They urged the body to hold hearings on the bill
and not to attach it as an amendment to other fast-moving legislation. 
The environmental groups' complaints are more limited than those of
open-records advocates; the environmentalists do not protest the
legislation's stated intent but argue that it would profoundly undermine
the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to sue polluters.

Bennett spokeswoman Mary Jane Collipriest said the bill would do nothing
of the kind. "This applies only to voluntarily shared information and
does not supercede information required by the regulatory agency," she
said. 
The measure would define "critical infrastructure" to include both
"physical and cyber-based systems and services," and it specifically
would include infrastructures related to electric power, gas and oil
production, and other environmental systems.

Advocates of the measure within the technology industry say critical
infrastructure information must be broadly defined because such physical
facilities increasingly are being controlled remotely via
telecommunications networks--and hence are subject to the sort of
cyberattacks the legislation is designed to prevent.

But even granting that need, Rena Steinzor, an academic fellow at the
Natural Resources Defense Council, protested that the bill's specific
inclusion of the EPA in the list of agencies affected means that the
bill is designed to serve polluters' interests. "Why send sensitive
information about computer intrusions to the EPA?" Steinzor said.

By sending information about physical plants to agencies collecting
cyber information, utilities and other power plants could avoid civil
actions by the government or by private plaintiffs, she said.

Spokeswomen for Bennett and the Edison Electric Institute, a supporter
of the bill, countered that the measure would not exempt utilities from
civil liability for submitting information in bad faith.

"It will not impede any civil lawsuits," Collipriest said. "It will not
impact rulemaking, nor will it supercede statute or regulation."

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