Obama Signs Into Law Controverisal CISA Bill

The controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act Bill hit the desk of US President Obama yesterday, and he promptly signed off on it. The move is hardly a surprise since CISA was bundled with vital Federal funding legislation as part of an ‘omnibus’ bill that, if denied, would rob the Federal government of its $1.1 trillion budget.

“There’s some things in there that I don’t like, but that’s the nature of legislation and compromise, and I think the system worked,” President Obama said at his year-end news conference, as reported by The Associated Press (via WHDH). “It was a good win.”

The “compromise” that Obama is referring to seems to be the protection of immigration laws, Planned Parenthood, and ObamaCare – all challenged by Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers across 2015 – in exchange for his support of CISA. Following Obama’s enactment, the bill will sent back to Congress, which will reconvene in January 2016.

While CISA is being championed primarily by Republicans, two of the GOP’s Presidential candidates, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted against CISA.

Democrat Senator Ron Wyden, a vocal opponent of CISA, lamented the bill’s approval, saying in a press release:

“These unacceptable surveillance provisions are a black mark on a worthy package that contacts the biggest tax cut for working families in decades, an accomplishment I fought for in weeks of negotiations.”

“Unfortunately, this misguided cyber legislation does little to protect Americans’ security, and a great deal more to threaten our privacy than the flawed Senate version. Americans demand real solutions that will protect them from foreign hackers, not knee-jerk responses that allow companies to fork over huge amounts of their customers’ private data with only cursory review.”