Date: 2013-04-18
Speaker: JACKSON LEE (democrat)
Chamber: H

Let me thank the chairman and the ranking member for the work that they have done in getting us here today and in crafting the legislation. and I thank the Rules Committee for making what I think is a very important amendment in order. I thank this process for allowing clarifying amendments because we are here representing the American people. Mr. Chair. my amendment is straightforward. It improves the bill by indicating that: Nothing in this Act or the amendments made by this Act shall be construed to provide authority to a department or agency of the Federal Government to require a cybersecurity provider that has contracted with the Federal Government to provide information services to provide information about cybersecurity incidents that do not pose a threat to the Federal Government. We want to be concerned about that. It makes it clear that the only instance in which a cloud service provider can share information about a cyber incident with a government agency is when the objective of an attempted intrusion of the service providers network was to gain unauthorized access to the governments information. I am pleased to state that this commonsense amendment is supported by a number of groups. including Constitutional Alliance. The Constitution Project. Liberty Coalition. and the ACLU. In other words. if a cyber incident does not threaten the governments information. then the incident is none of the governments need to intrude. and this is especially true when disclosure to the government would compromise an individuals privacy and proprietary information of businesses. Mr. Chairman. today. something commonly called the "cloud" plays an unseen but critical part in the lives of millions of Americans and thousands of businesses. Persons and businesses that use iPhones. Gmail. Yahoo!. and MSN email services are connected to the cloud. This. of course. does not in any way hinder our homeland security or national security. Cloud services indlude popular online services like Facebook and YouTube. The cloud is saving consumers and businesses from the loss of valuable data through storage services. and when you speak to our industries. they are protected. This is the cloudall private sector. They are not intruded upon. but add the governmentif the government comes in and decides just without any clarification that well give your information to others without it being necessary. without it being government information. without it being related to government operations. my amendment protects you in the private sector from that kind of intrusion. So I believe that this amendment will protect commerce. These are wellknown names. This is who this amendment will protectall of those who are generating commerce in the midst of cloud computing. Mr. Chairman. cloud computing is such an important innovation that it is changing how people. businesses. and government agencies manage information. The Jackson Lee amendment recognizes the importance of cloud computing to our economy. and it is consistent with the objectives of the bill while ensuring that the privacy and civil liberties rights of citizens are protected. Again. they are doing business with each other. Once we put in the government. the question has to be whether or not the government transmits information that is not necessary. My amendment protects consumers and businesses that are in the midst of providing and helping in their lives to make sure that users have their privacy. The cloud allows users seamless access to information from any location in the United States where the Internet is accessible and available. My amendment protects them and is ready to help clarify this bill. and I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. Mr. Chair. I yield to the ranking member of the committee. the distinguished gentleman from Maryland.