Sen. Feinstein is At it Again: She Wants More 'Big Brother' Power for NSA

The Senate intelligence committee voted Tuesday to adopt a major cybersecurity bill that critics fear will give the National Security Agency even wider access to American data than it already has.
Observers said the bill, approved by a 12 to 3 vote in a meeting closed to the public, would face a difficult time passing the full Senate, considering both the shortened legislative calendar in an election year and the controversy surrounding surveillance.
But the bill is a priority of current and former NSA directors, who warn that private companies’ vulnerability to digital sabotage and economic data exfiltration will get worse without it.
Pushed by Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss, the California Democrat and Georgia Republican who lead the committee, the bill would remove legal obstacles that block firms from sharing information "in real time" about cyber-attacks and prevention or mitigation measures with one another and with the US government.
Worrying civil libertarians is that the NSA and its twin military command, US Cyber Command, would receive access to vast amounts of data, and privacy guidelines for the handling of that data are yet to be developed.
A draft of the bill released in mid-June would permit government agencies to share, retain and use the information for "a cybersecurity purpose" – defined as "the purpose of protecting an information system or information that is stored on, processed by or transiting an information system from a cybersecurity threat or security vulnerability" – raising the prospect of the NSA stockpiling a catalogue of weaknesses in digital security, as a recent White House data-assurance policy permits.

 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/senate-cybersecurity-bill-opposed-by-nsa-critics