If you use the internet, you should be opposed to the passage of the Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA. The bill was blocked last year, because it's a draconian privacy nightmare, but it's back, and feeding on Sony hacker paranoia.

The Hill reports that not only is CISPA making another attempt at existence—reintroduced yesterday—it's immediately and openly being pegged to the recent Sony mega-hack:

"The reason I'm putting bill in now is I want to keep the momentum going on what's happening out there in the world," Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), told The Hill in an interview, referring to the recent Sony hack, which the FBI blamed on North Korea.

What's left unexplained is how CISPA would've stopped the Sony hack, or if actually passed this time, would stop the next attack of that magnitude. CISPA would let federal governmental agencies swap your personal data from services like YouTube and Pinterest, handed over en masse without a subpoena, warrant, or meaningful oversight of any kind—all it would take is the appearance of a looming "cyber threat" that you may or may not be a part of. What is a "cyber threat"? No one knows—it's the everything and nothing scare-entity of our time. If the FBI can't even explain how Sony was hacked, it's hard to imagine how legislation capable of only blunt force trauma against cyber-goblins would make any of us safer. Motherboard makes a very good point:

Would having a law like CISPA on the books have prevented the Sony hack?

Almost definitely not, according to several civil liberty groups. We're not really sure if North Korea hacked Sony, and there has been some very convincing evidence that the hackers needed someone on the inside, perhaps a disgruntled former employee, to execute a breach of this size.

An information sharing bill, Amie Stepanovich, a lawyer with the civil liberties group Access told me, would have done nothing to stop a current or former employee from perpetrating such a hack.

For a fuller explanation of the bill, read on below.