I've been pretty consistently disappointed with how EFF has been portraying this bill (which I don't support), to the point where it's causing me to re-evaluate the EFF as a whole.<p>The ACLU has had a much more measured response. Instead of trying to mobilize opposition to the bill by depicting it as "SOPA 2" (which it clearly isn't), they provided a list of suggestions for narrowing and refining the language in CISPA. The new draft reflects many of their concerns.<p>At its heart, CISPA is mostly a publicity measure meant to provide its sponsors with a veneer of having "done something" about the growing threat to industry by determined nation-state attackers (which is a real, if perhaps overhyped, threat to our national security). The kernel of intervention in CISPA --- the <i>only</i> thing CISPA actually "does" --- is an "official" provision for sharing information between service providers.<p>Some things you should know before you make up your mind about how dangerous that sharing is:<p>* It is already <i>broadly</i> allowed by the pre-PATRIOT 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires only that information be shared in conjunction with an actual effort to maintain services by the provider of the service itself, establishes no limits on the amount of information share <i>or who it's shared with</i>, explicitly carves out the ability for providers to share information with officials acting under color of law during criminal investigations (without a warrant!), and makes no mention whatsoever of anonymizing or stripping PII (ironically unlike CISPA).<p>* It reflects already- in- place common industry practice: providers are already sharing often-detailed information about attacks.<p>* The "monitoring" of your emails is already so commonplace and widely accepted that it forms the basis for products like Google Mail; the capture and sharing of your email during criminal investigations is, sadly, already allowed without a warrant in many US venues!<p>It is one thing to suggest that the state of affairs for electronic privacy is sad indeed, and to militate in favor of better laws. Count me in.<p>It's another thing entirely to attempt to twist every meaningless, do-nothing piece of legislation to come out of Washington as an attempt to rewire the Internet in favor of the MPAA, which is exactly what the EFF appears to be doing here.<p>I felt like the concern over SOPA was slightly overblown but at least fundamentally valid. Here I see virtually no validity to the concerns, and any epsilon of valid concern that is present is so outweighed by hysteria that the net effect on civic discourse is negative, not positive.<p>Support organizations that aren't trying to play off your emotions.