Author: Casey Karp – FAA « WordPress.com Tag Feed
It’s been a bad week for anyone who pays attention to security.
Remember CISPA, the bill that would have allowed companies to share pretty much any customer information with the government and each other in the name of “cybersecurity”? CISPA passed in the House, but never made it out of the Senate. Of course, no bad bill ever really dies, and this year’s zombie version zipped through the House with little opposition. In late October, the Senate passed their own version, known as CISA (Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act).
Late last week, Infoworld reported that assorted Congress critters have been meeting to reconcile the House’s CISPA and the Senate’s CISA, and potentially merge them with two other related bills, PCNA (Protecting Cyber Networks Act) and NCPAA (National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act).
Is anyone surprised that the changes being discussed relate to removing what few privacy protection measures the bills included? Or that the combined bill would potentially make the NSA–yes, the same NSA whose charter is to spy on potential threats outside the United States–into the lead agency to manage the sharing of information?
Well, this week it got even better. “Better” for anyone who wants to give the NSA more authority to monitor Americans inside the U.S., that is. Worse for anyone who honestly believes they have a right to privacy. The new and “improved” version of CISA, stripped of those weak privacy protections, was–according to Engadget–included in the budget bill introduced Tuesday.
Yes, the budget bill that has to be passed in order to avoid another government shutdown like the one we had in October of 2013. The one that must be passed so quickly nobody’s going to have time to read all 2,000 pages, much less understand their implications.
Joy.
Meanwhile, the Federal Aviation Administration has released its regulations regarding drone registrations. All drones, even those purchased before the rules go into effect on Monday, must be registered. Failure to do so leaves the owner liable for civil fines of $ 27,500 and criminal penalties as high as $ 250,000.
Registering a drone will cost you. There’s a charge of $ 5, and you’ll need to re-register every three years. And yes, the FAA will be taking your credit card information in order to charge you. So, not only will they have your name, address, and other personal information, they’ll have your card information. Shall we start a pool on how long it’ll take for someone to hack the database and start selling the information?