US Senate approves CISA bill criticized by tech companies

The US Senate has passed the CISA, a law against which many tech companies have spoken out. The law allows companies to voluntarily share user data with the government.

In exchange for sharing that data, companies cannot be prosecuted for matters related to that data and the data is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, which regulates that much government data must be public. The CISA legislation passed the Senate without amendment.

Now the House of Representatives still has to agree to the legislation, after which US President Obama has to sign it. However, it is not obvious that either will stop the law, writes The Guardian.

The legislation raised a lot of resistance, because the privacy of users would be at stake. Apple and Dropbox spoke out against the law last week, according to The Washington Post, but Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon did not. reddit and Twitter were also openly opposed.

A group of professors spoke out against the legislation in a public letter, arguing that it would not be effective against digital security issues. In addition, it would give companies free rein in combating digital threats without imposing clear boundaries and without the possibility to sue companies afterwards for any missteps in combating digital dangers.