The House Homeland Security Committee voted today to forward to the full House with a positive recommendation legislation that would extend the soon-to-expire Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015).
The 2015 law approved by Congress put in place a legal framework for government and the private sector to share cybersecurity threat data, and the law has been hailed since then as foundational to improving U.S. cybersecurity.
The law is set to expire later this month, and cybersecurity officials from many quarters have been calling for CISA 2015’s extension for the past several months.
In a markup session today, the House committee debated the merits of a new bill – the Widespread Information Management for the Welfare of Infrastructure and Government Act,” (WIMWIG Act) – offered by Chairman Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., that closely tracks with the 2015 law but also features some differences.
The new bill, said Rep. Garbarino today, “reauthorizes a vital tool for our nation’s collective cyber defense: the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015.”
“Over the last decade, the law has provided a framework for voluntary information sharing across the public and private sectors, and between private sector entities, regarding cyber threats facing our networks,” he said. “Reauthorizing this law and ensuring the relevance of this framework before it expires is essential for maintaining our cyber resilience,” the committee chairman said.
By a vote of 25-0, the committee voted to send the bill to the full House with a positive recommendation for further action.
The bill received positive reviews from several committee members on both sides of the aisle at today’s markup. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the committee, said he supports the overall legislation but also wants its sponsors to provide more opportunities to discuss privacy and civil liberties implications of the legislation and perhaps to amend it further.
Chairman Garbarino indicated today that that the legislation also has the support of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.