The United States House of Representatives have passed the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (PCNA) which it claims will help companies respond better to hacker threats. Not everyone was impressed though as detractors of the bill claimed it will put the privacy of American citizens at stake.
The bill passed 307-116 with 22 Republicans and 102 Democrats voting in favour of the bill. The bill still has to make it through the Senate before it reaches President Obama for it to be signed into a law.
The bill envisages easier and efficient means of communications between the companies and concerned government agencies of cyber security threats without risk of being sued in the process. Industry groups that had been advocating the passage of such a bill welcomed the move. President Obama too has been personally keen to have the bill passed.
Those in favour of the bill claimed this will enable companies to act faster in the event of a hacking threat of the scope of the one that Sony or Home Depot faced recently.
"At some point, we need to stop talking about the next Sony, the next Anthem, the next Target, the next JP Morgan Chase and the next State Department hack, and actually pass a bill that will help ensure that there will be no next cyber attack," Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was quoted saying by Reuters.
Another bill, the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act (NCPA) which has some similarity with the PCNA but also contradicts it on some areas is slated for voting on Thursday.
However, both the PCNA and NCPA have brought back memories of the infamous surveillance measures adopted by the NSA a few years ago. Critics maintain the bill has little clarity on privacy issues and argue that this will enable government agencies such as the NSA to have access to the private data of citizens.
Proponents of the bill argue there are some safeguards in place to ensure privacy of citizens. For instance, the bill calls for the companies to remove personally identifying information before letting government sources having access to those. Similarly, the government agencies too are required to delete any personal data before making any move, claimed Wired.