Lawmakers: Cybersecurity bill is not SOPA

The sponsors of a cybersecurity bill that is moving through Congress pushed back Tuesday against claims that the legislation is a reboot of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that online activists helped defeat earlier this year.

Critics who compare the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) to SOPA are “comparing apples and oranges,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Preventing online piracy and securing the nation’s infrastructure are “two very different things,” he said.

CISPA, which Rogers introduced with Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, would allow government authorities to make classified and non-classified data available to the private sector for the purpose of shoring up the electronic defenses of critical infrastructure.

Online activists who helped sink SOPA have turned their attention to the bill, and say they are concerned that the measure is another attempt by Congress to restrict the Internet.

Rogers stressed on a call with reporters that the direction House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) went with SOPA is "completely different from where we are [with CISPA]."

A congressional staffer familiar with the CISPA stressed that its requirements are “totally voluntary” and do not require private companies to share information with the military, as some have claimed.

"Nobody [in the private sector] … is required to provide anything to anyone else, or required to do anything," the staffer said.

Ruppersberger said there’s an urgent need for the legislation due to an increasing number of cyberattacks against the country. 

“We are being attacked every day as we speak," Ruppersberger said. “If Iran were sending bombers, would we move to stop them?” he said.

In an interview after the call with The Hill, Rogers pointed out that many nation-states are known to have cyberwar plans that are being updated at "at breathtaking rates." 

Today's hackers are "[n]ot small groups," Rogers said. "[W]e're talking about nation-states."