Dive Brief:
- Much-awaited cybersecurity legislation is expected to advance after being slipped by Congress into the omnibus spending bill released this week.
- Involved lawmakers finished negotiations on a merged version of the bills previously passed by the Senate and House on Tuesday, just in time to get it included.
- By getting embedded within the omnibus legislation, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) is more likely to pass as-is and without any challenges, because action against it would threaten the entire budget deal.
Dive Insight:
The bill would give hospitals and health systems liability protection when sharing cyber threat data with the government in efforts to improve detection, mitigation, and response to such threats.
As previously reported, the measure would require HHS to appoint an official to coordinate health cybersecurity efforts; request a report from HHS on emerging healthcare cyber threats; request HHS to create best practices on how health industry leaders can voluntarily follow data security measures; create a task force of health industry leaders and cybersecurity experts to identify challenges and solutions for cybersecurity; and create a central, federal resource on cyber intelligence for rapid responses to active threats.
Privacy advocates have increasingly opposed the CISA, which incentivizes companies to share cybersecurity information with the federal government, since the House and Senate passed their respective versions of the legislation in April and October.
That opposition ramped up this week as it became clear the bill was targeted for inclusion in the omnibus, and will presumably land on Obama's desk.
Much of the debate now revolves around accusations that its potential passage is being done without sufficient transparency because negotiations and bill text were not made public.
"Congressional leadership is subverting fair process in order to pass a surveillance bill under the false flag of cybersecurity,” Drew Mitnick, policy counsel at digital rights advocate Access Now told The Hill. “They are attempting to insert it into unrelated, must-pass legislation.”
Meanwhile, supporters say it's an essential step in combating hackers.
The omnibus bill was approved by House members this morning.