Seven co-sponsors of CISPA cybersecurity bill voted against it

By Brendan Sasso - 04/27/12 05:35 PM ET

Five Democratic and two Republican co-sponsors of the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) reversed course and voted against the bill on the House floor on Thursday evening.

The Democratic co-sponsors who voted against it were Reps. Joe Baca (Calif.), Anna Eshoo (Calif.), Luis Gutierrez (Ill.), Alcee Hastings (Fla.) and Michael Michaud (Maine). The Republicans were Reps. Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Ralph Hall (Texas).

The House approved the bill on a vote of 248-168, with 42 Democrats supporting the bill and 28 Republicans opposed.

The White House issued a veto threat the day before the House voted, saying the bill lacked adequate privacy protections and would fail to protect critical infrastructure, such as electrical grids or chemical plants.

Democratic Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (Md.), one of the authors of CISPA, told The Hill that Democratic lawmakers grilled him about his bill during a caucus meeting after the White House came out against it.

CISPA would remove legal barriers that prevent companies from sharing information about cyber threats with each other and with the government. But privacy advocates warn the bill would encourage companies to hand over their customers' personal information to spy agencies.

In a letter to lawmakers ahead of Thursday's vote, Eshoo said she co-sponsored the bill "knowing that additional work needed to be done to narrow the scope of the bill, to ensure strong oversight, and to provide robust consumer privacy protections."

"While progress has been made since H.R. 3523 was first introduced, I’ve reviewed the 16 amendments that the House will consider and I’ve concluded that they collectively fail to cure the larger shortcomings of the bill," Eshoo wrote. "At its core, the legislation must provide robust protections to minimize the collection of personally-identifiable information, and because it does not, I’m unable to support this version of the legislation."

The White House has endorsed a Senate cybersecurity bill sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) that includes tougher privacy protections and mandatory standards for critical systems.

Correction: A previous version of this post did not identify Rep. Hastings as one of the co-sponsors who voted against the bill.