Who Needs CISPA? FBI Has a Non-Profit Workaround 79
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the one-goal-many-routes dept.
from the one-goal-many-routes dept.
nonprofiteer writes "What has been left out of the CISPA debate thus far is the FBI's long time workaround for information sharing with private industry: 'In 1997, long-time FBI agent Dan Larkin helped set up a non-profit based in Pittsburgh that "functions as a conduit between private industry and law enforcement." Its industry members, which include banks, ISPs, telcos, credit card companies, pharmaceutical companies, and others can hand over cyberthreat information to the non-profit, called the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), which has a legal agreement with the government that allows it to then hand over info to the FBI. Conveniently, the FBI has a unit, the Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit, stationed in the NCFTA's office. Companies can share information with the 501(c)6 non-profit that they would be wary of (or prohibited from) sharing directly with the FBI.'"
Civil cases either (Score:4, Interesting)
and therefore you may not be able to sue them for money damages,
And since they are a non-profit, there's probably nothing you can sue them for in a civil case either. They'll just declare bankruptcy and open under a different name.
And you can't sue the private entities behind NCFTA, because that communication is protected as free speech.
Re:In other words, (Score:5, Interesting)
who needs laws in a country ruled by money?
The film Network summed it up nicely. The protagonist, Howard Beale, meets with a tycoon named Jesson. Among other things, Jesson says to him:
"YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. BEALE, AND I WON'T HAVE IT! Is that clear?! You think you merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance!
"You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians, there are no Arabs, there are no Third Worlds, there is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?
"You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
"What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime.
"And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."
That's how they think. They don't see the dehumanization.
Re:Wow ... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an absurd characterization of the NCFTA and the work they do. As someone who's worked with the NCFTA and actively opposed CISPA, SOPA etc I can say for certain they do very different work. NCFTA facilitates a common sense exchange of "personal" data in order to better combat fraud across the board. The NCFTA is a great organization and does very good work preventing internet based crime.
For a good example do a little reading on Dark Market and the take down the occurred there. Throwing the NCFTA and CISPA/SOPA into the same container is completely ignorant end poor journalism imo.