House to amend CISPA in secret

House members during last year's floor debate on CISPA (clockwise from top left): Jared Polis, who warned it would "waive every single privacy law ever enacted"; Adam Schiff; Sheila Jackson Lee; Hank Johnson; Mike Rogers; Jan Schakowsky

(Credit: C-SPAN)

Another day, another House Intelligence Committee session held in secret, under the rather convenient excuse that "classified information" might be revealed.

As was the case last year when members of the committee amended the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) the first time around -- the bill, dubbed a "privacy killer" by online activists and privacy groups, will once again be amended in a veil of secrecy.

According to the committee's spokesperson, Susan Phalen, (via The Hill), these secret hearings are not uncommon and "sometimes they'll need to bounce into classified information and go closed for a period of time to talk."

She said that in order to keep the flow of the mark-up -- where rewrites to proposed legislation are made -- the committee cannot suddenly stop, order every person and member of the media out of the chamber, only to be brought back in ... [Read more]