The criticism that, by including a provision for the protection of intellectual property, CISPA is little more than a less-conspicuous form of the draconian SOPA bill seems misguided. CISPA is vague and unnecessarily broad, but it’s not SOPA. In fact, the very same Internet companies that were so adamantly opposed to SOPA might support CISPA. Facebook already does. So does outspoken SOPA critic Darrell Issa (R-CA). Here’s why.

1. CISPA is actually good, in theory. The idea of sharing cybersecurity information between private companies and the government has merit, especially in a world of increased cyberattacks against organizations in both sectors. If you’re trying to discover patterns in attacks, more data is always better, and web sites are attacked constantly. That they also could have access to classified government data is particularly beneficial.
2. CISPA doesn’t require service providers to do anything. SOPA all but forced service providers to monitor user behavior to the benefit of media companies (or to avoid being shut down by them), but CISPA only allows those providers to act in their own best interests. It’s unclear to me, at this point, why any company like Facebook, Google or Twitter would do anything other than obtain information on activity that directly affects the security of their platforms or their proprietary data.
3. I’m not certain the inclusion of intellectual property protection was driven by ulterior motives. For one, CISPA actually reads as if private parties can only gather information relating to their own rights and property, which would mean ISPs can’t go about monitoring for copyright infringement because they don’t own any copyright. There’s a strong argument that the bill primarily targets cyberattacks aimed at stealing data or files from a company’s servers (CISPA co-author Mike Rogers (R-MI) said as much in a press conference yesterday), although existing cybersecurity law certainly target some of that activity.

Probably the biggest problem is what a company is able to do to “protect” itself from such threats. As the EFF points out, CISPA allows companies to “use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property of such protected entity.” It also grants companies immunity from lawsuits if they exercise their rights under the bill in good faith.

If the EFF is correct, companies could bypass existing laws regarding the monitoring of communications, claim good faith and — if they have a solid case — be free from liability. The EFF also talks a lot about CISPA allowing service providers to “block” sites, although it’s unclear what type of activity the bill actually allows in response to information gathered. Does it allow them to obtain information and take shutdown actions like those SOPA would allow, or just to react to information only within the bounds of what’s already legal?

It’s a little scary, then, that CISPA has such strong support in the House of Representatives. Whereas SOPA had only 23 co-sponsors, CISPA has 106, including Issa. That web companies such as Microsoft and Facebook have signed off on it isn’t too promising, either. It likely will take some powerful voices to at least clear up the vagaries of the bill, but it’s hard to see where they’ll come from this time around.

Feature image courtesy of Rob Allday.

[An earlier version of story incorrectly stated that the Free Justin Bieber campaign was being run by news site, Torrent Freak]

A group called Fight for the Future is claiming that Justin Bieber could be extradited from Canada because he didn’t obtain permission to use the R&B songs in the YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) videos that made him famous. It released the story this morning along with pics of a miserable-looking Biebs hunkered in a cell with an orange jumpsuit and a tear drop tattoo. The site notes that, under the terms of a proposed law, Bieber could end up doing five years of hard time for streaming copyrighted material without permission.

The law in question was proposed in the Senate last May and is titled “A bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright.” It proposes to add the words “or public performance” into existing criminal penalties for reproducing or downloading copyrighted works. In plain English, the bill’s goal is to ensure that streaming videos to the public — this would presumably include YouTube videos — are subject to the same tough penalties as other types of unauthorized copying.

According to the Library of Congress, the bill has been in the Judiciary Committee since June.

The story was first reported by TorrentFreak is a popular source for original reporting on the ongoing clashes between copyright owners and individuals who like to share media through technologies like BitTorrent.

Besides doing right by consumers, Intelius is also eager to please right now to ensure its pending $144 million IPO goes off without a hitch. That might be difficult if both state and federal legislation is being proposed that would ban third-party cellphone directories that did not have permission from the subscribers to be listed. Verizon Wireless also said last week it was considering litigation against Intelius. “Stop it. This is a violation of Americans