Overnight Cybersecurity: Final vote set for cyber bill

Welcome to OVERNIGHT CYBERSECURITY, your daily rundown of the biggest news in the world of hacking and data privacy. We’re here to connect the dots as leaders in government, policy and industry try to counter the rise in cyber threats. What lies ahead for Congress, the administration and the latest company under siege? Whether you’re a consumer, a techie or a D.C. lifer, we’re here to give you …

THE BIG STORIES:

–THE MIDNIGHT HOUR IS CLOSE AT HAND: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is teeing up the Senate to wrap up its work on a cybersecurity bill next Tuesday. The Republican leader got unanimous consent Thursday to schedule a vote on final passage of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) for Tuesday afternoon. The bill would give companies incentives to share cyber threat data with the government. But even with McConnell’s maneuvering, the legislation still has hurdles to overcome before senators can take a final vote on the legislation. The Republican leader also set up a final vote on a manager’s package — which includes a slate of amendments — to the underlying bill, as well as separate votes on seven additional amendments. After that, lawmakers will need to agree to end debate on CISA, which will require the support of 60 senators. If that’s successful, they would move directly to a final vote. To read our full piece, click here.

{mosads}–FIRST THINGS FIRST: Before McConnell could schedule a final vote, CISA had to clear its first procedural hurdle on Thursday. The Senate voted 83-14 to end debate on the manager’s amendment package, a positive sign for CISA backers that could indicate broad support of the measure moving forward. The manager’s amendment, from CISA co-sponsors Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is meant to mitigate some of the privacy and surveillance fears that have kept the bill off the Senate floor for so long. It’s widely expected to be adopted in a final vote next Tuesday. “It makes important changes to the bill,” Feinstein said, “to address privacy concerns about the legislation.” The Burr-Feinstein amendment has also helped assuage worries that Feinstein’s colleagues expressed as CISA moved through the upper chamber. Various provisions within the amendment restrict the data that companies can share with the government, eliminate controversial government uses of that data and set up a more robust government scrub of any personal information it accidentally receives, Feinstein explained. The edits likely helped CISA gain the support of key Democrats, including Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, who was backing a competing cyber bill earlier this year. To read our full piece, click here.

–OPENING SALVO: The Senate did vote on one CISA amendment Thursday, shooting down a controversial edit from Sen. Rand Paul that the bill’s backers said could have killed the whole measure. The amendment from the Kentucky Republican, who is running for president, would have stripped liability immunity from any company found breaking a user or privacy agreement with its customers. The offering received 32 votes, short of the simple majority needed to pass. CISA has split traditional industries like finance and retail, which argue they need the legal assurance, and privacy groups, which say CISA will give private companies too much leeway to share Americans’ personal data with the government. Paul, who has made a name for himself and his 2016 campaign by siding with privacy and civil liberties groups on issues such as government surveillance, has taken a strong stance against CISA. On Thursday, he took the floor to argue that CISA “makes your privacy agreement not really worth the paper it’s written on. But in the hours leading up to the vote on Paul’s proposal, industry groups banded together to strongly oppose his offering. Feinstein brought their concerns to the floor. “We have been told, for the industries that support this bill, that this amendment is a bill-killer,” she said. To read our full piece, click here.

–OBAMA OPINES: CISA also got its official stamp of approval from the White House late Thursday. The Obama administration has been informally on board with the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) — which would shield companies from legal liability when sharing cyber threat data with the government — since August, when White House spokesman Eric Schultz called on the upper chamber to swiftly move the bill. But Thursday’s statement cemented White House support for the measure that has received opposition both from President Obama’s own party and civil liberties-minded Republicans. To read our full piece, click here.

UPDATE ON CYBER POLICY:

PUT A PIN IN IT. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is no longer putting forward an amendment to a contentious cybersecurity bill that tacked on a piece of privacy legislation he is attempting to speed through the Senate.

The so-called Judicial Redress Act would give European citizens the right to sue in U.S. courts if their personal data is mishandled. Passage is a prerequisite to a pending data-sharing agreement between the U.S. and the EU.

The House passed its version of the bill earlier this week.

The amendment was shelved, for now, over concerns that it wouldn’t be considered germane and therefore wouldn’t get a vote under Senate rules. But the bill is seen as largely uncontroversial and is expected to move forward without much opposition.

Murphy and co-sponsor Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said they would continue to pursue passage of the Judicial Redress Act through other avenues.

“We’re going to chat with the leader and see what’s the best thing to do, but we need to get that passed,” Hatch told The Hill. “I would think it would have pretty strong bipartisan support.”

To read our full piece, click here.

LIGHTER CLICK:

–REJOICE! Apple’s iOS 9.1 update, released this week, includes a taco emoji AND a middle finger emoji.

We know you’ve all been waiting for this. Read on, here.

–THIS HEADLINE: “Soccer Star Bastian Schweinsteiger May Sue Over Nazi Doll With His Name and Face”

More info, here.

WHO’S IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

–JEB BUSH. The Republican presidential nominee’s cybersecurity platform got a full review on Thursday from Adam Segal, a cyber policy expert with the Council on Foreign Relations.

“Jeb Bush clearly plans to take cybersecurity seriously. However, among his proposals, there’s a lot that’s not new,” he writes. “Bush will be hard pressed to take cyber more seriously than the current administration: spending on cyber is one of the only areas of the federal budget that has largely escaped the ax of sequestration and continues to grow.”

Read on, here.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Links from our blog, The Hill, and around the Web.

Apple is staking out a public position against CISA, just as the Senate takes up the long-stalled legislation. (The Hill)

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) defended accusations he was selectively leaking information about his investigation into the security of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. (The Hill)

Reps. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) and Will Hurd (R-Texas) urged action on cybersecurity legislation in a joint op-ed. (FCW)

Scammers have collected over $20,000 in extortion money off of the Ashley Madison hack. (CSO)

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) parsed the evolution of the CISA debate. (The Daily Dot)

TalkTalk customers’ data may be at risk after hackers targeted the company’s website. (The Guardian)

Corporate boards are increasingly choosing women to fill cybersecurity positions. (Bloomberg)

A new action plan designed to plug long-festering gaps in federal agencies’ information security policies is set to be released any day now. (NextGov)

How hard is it — actually — to hack a car? (Yahoo)

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