Cybersecurity Bill Faces Time Crunch as Recess Approaches

With the Senate clocking out for the summer at the end of the week of Aug 3, there is precious little time to get skeptical senators on board for a major overhaul of the nation's cybersecurity laws -- the final item on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) pre-recess checklist. Already, privacy advocates have launched a coordinated push to point out what they consider a lack of privacy protections in the bill, which is intended to facilitate cybersecurity coordination between the private sector and the government. Supporters say the law would allow both to build more secure defenses against online intruders.

Majority Leader McConnell's proposed timing raised the ire of key Senators, including one of the Senate's most outspoken privacy advocates, Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who called the timing a "political stunt." The majority leader has not formally moved to line up the vote to open the debate on the Cyber Information-Sharing Act, or CISA. Majority Leader McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said that the Senate would take up the cybersecurity bill on Aug 5 and finish it as early as the evening of Aug 6, allowing members to leave town for the August recess that night or the morning of Aug 7. Although CISA passed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee nearly unanimously in March, senators from both parties are pushing to add amendments to the bill. Given the tight schedule before recess, that could be a major roadblock to getting the legislation finished without a deal facilitated by leadership.