An Open Letter

Dear Senators,

There are legitimate for-profit companies that oppose the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013 (CISPA) in its current form, including the undersigned.

We understand and support the intention of making our networks more secure from attack. However, CISPA in its current form does not balance that intention with the other equally important intention of protecting personal privacy.

We believe you can both protect networks and protect privacy at the same time.

We would like to see a final bill that at least:

• Requires reasonable efforts to remove unnecessary personal information before sharing any information with others.
• Mandates both notification to citizens whose information was obtained or shared and deletion of that information, in a reasonable timeframe.
• Closes loopholes due to overly vague definitions in the bill for terms like "cybersecurity purpose," "cybersecurity system" and "cyber threat information."
• Constrains data acquisition, usage and any associated immunity to directly related security purposes.

We respect the analysis of the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union on how the current proposals impact personal privacy. They offer specific suggestions on how to fix the bill from the perspective of privacy, while still making it effective for network security.

Please ensure that the above and related points are addressed before introducing any similar legislation in the Senate.