Sen. Peters tries another approach to extend expired cyber threat information-sharing law

A top Senate Democrat introduced legislation Thursday to extend and rename an expired information-sharing law, and make it retroactive to cover the lapse that began Oct. 1.

Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the Protecting America from Cyber Threats (PACT) Act, to replace the expired Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Act of 2015 (CISA 2015) that has provided liability protections for organizations that share cyber threat data with each other and the federal government. Industry groups and cyber professionals have called those protections vital, sometimes describing the 2015 law as the most successful cyber legislation ever passed.

The 2015 law shares an acronym with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which some Republicans — including the chairman of Peters’ panel, Rand Paul of Kentucky — have accused of engaging in social media censorship. As CISA 2015 has lapsed and Peters has tried to renew it, “some people think that’s a reauthorization of the agency,” Peters told reporters Thursday in explaining the new bill name.

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