The cyber community is already abuzz as the U.S. congressmen are mulling another draconian legislation on cyber activity that could lead to gross privacy violations for internet users. CISPA stands for "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act." The advocate for this legislation is Republican Congressman Rep. Mike Rogers, who has declared that a death penalty must be considered for Bradly Manning a U.S. soldier accused of leaking sensitive U.S. military threads to Wikileaks.

The legislature proposal is coming in the backdrop of national protests staged by U.S. citizens in January this year in the New York City to protest against the CISPA legislative predecessor, SOPA. The proposed legislation that many analysts have labeled as "worse than SOPA" is up for the plebiscite in 2 weeks.

Cnet reports that unlike the failed legislative proposals CISPA enjoys the coveted support of IT giants like Facebook, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Intel and Symantec and several others. The proposed bill is already enjoying the support of up to 28 renowned IT companies.

The core of the CISPA legislation is to eliminate legal barriers that restrict companies in the exchange and release of information about their users to the government. The legislation will legalize the sharing of private information by IT entities and social networks such as Facebook and mobile technology companies like AT&T to bypass internet privacy principles and laws as and when Homeland Security requires them to submit such information or shutdown.

Some analysts are wary of the wording of the proposal bill citing that the ambiguous wording will give the government leeway to implement extreme measures against websites such as The Pirate Bay and Wikileaks. The developments are raising fears that in the premise of such a bill the government may extend its tentacles to websites that publish typical Wikileaks information such as the New York Times and Guardian UK.

The bill, which has not been fully enacted yet, has come way short of convincing critics that it is any different from the failed SOPA legislation. Congressman Rogers, the sponsor of the bill, is pulling all stops in trying to convince the electorate that the bill is different from the failed SOPA proposition. In one of the defenses for the proposed bill presented in a recent media briefing, the bill's spin doctors stated that the bill will have nothing to do with domain seizures but analysts warn that the bill is tailored to equip Homeland Security Agencies with top notch domain seizure tools for use in government-ordered domain and website shutdowns.

Information available on the bill so far indicates that CISPA is pre-eminently a surveillance bill. "With CISPA, a company like Google, FaceBook, Twitter, or AT&T could intercept your e-mails and text messages, send copies to one another and to the government, and keep it from being sent if it fits into a plan to stop cyber security threats." reports Cnet.

(reported by Gugulethu Nyoni, edited by Dave Clark)