WASHINGTON—As lawmakers prepare to go to conference on the House and Senate cyber threat information sharing bills, NAFCU, CUNA and several other financial service trade organizations have sent a joint letter to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee urging it to keep moving forward.
Members of House and Senate were copied on the letter.
The letter expresses the group’s support for efforts to pass cyber security legislation in the House and Senate and their appreciation for the strong bipartisan legislation that has advanced so far in the process.
However, they also expressed significant concern over Section 407 of the Senate bill, S. 754.
“This provision is simply at odds with the overall goal of a comprehensive, voluntary information sharing framework, and should it survive the process, could jeopardize our support for the underlying Conference Report,” the letter stated. “Moreover, we are concerned that this provision has not been adequately vetted in the same manner as the rest of the legislation and therefore could have unintended consequences that would impact the effectiveness of voluntary information sharing.”
The trade groups urged the committee to remove Section 407 entirely from the final conference report.
“We are very hopeful that you will be able to bring the other elements of the House and Senate bills together in one legislative package that we can strongly support,” the groups added. “This should include:
• Broad authorization for monitoring and sharing critical threat indicators and defensive measures and the operation of defensive measures.
• Liability protections that enhance voluntary sharing of critical information.
• Strong anti-trust and FOIA protections.
• Flexible avenues for sharing information quickly and effectively with the Federal government.
• Effective avenues for the Federal government to share threat information as quickly as possible with the private sector.
• A balanced approach to privacy issues that takes into consideration the need to effectively share critical threat information.
• Strong safeguards against unnecessary or duplicative mandates and regulation.”
Sixteen organizations signed the letter. In addition to NAFCU and CUNA, those include the American Bankers Association, American Insurance Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Electronic Transactions Association, Financial Services Roundtable, Independent Community Bankers of America, Investment Company Institute, and NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association.