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Privacy Advocates Do Not Support New Internet Privacy Bill

By Ian Bush

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A little over a year ago, SOPA -- the Stop Online Piracy Act -- was killed, thanks in large part to vocal opposition from tech companies and web users. Now, there's a cybersecurity bill that's expected to be reintroduced in the House today. This one's supported by Google and Facebook, but not by privacy advocates.

It's called CISPA -- the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. The Senate didn't take it up last session and President Obama threatened a veto anyway.

But its House sponsors say it deserves consideration as it would let companies and the feds share information about cyber threats.

Michelle Richardson with the ACLU doesn't like what she reads in the bill:

"It basically said all the privacy laws that now apply to the Internet would no longer apply, and that these companies on their own determination can share whatever information they want with the government as long as they thought it was relevant to cybersecurity."

She says big brother could then see what you write, to whom, and where you web surf. Richardson prefers an alternative in the Senate:

"It would be stripped of the personally identifiable information so that -- as they say, the 1s and 0s -- may be turned over to the government. It shouldn't include the very sensitive information that can be tracked back to any individual."

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