The House of Representatives ignored Obama administration objections and approved legislation aimed at helping stop electronic attacks on critical US infrastructure and private companies.
On a bipartisan vote of 248-168, the Republican-controlled House backed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which would encourage companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet to prevent electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign governments and terrorists.
"This is the last bastion of things we need to do to protect this country," Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said after more than five hours of debate on Thursday.
More than 10 years after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, proponents cast the bill as an initial step to deal with an evolving threat of the Internet age. The information sharing would be voluntary to avoid imposing new regulations on businesses, an imperative for Republicans.
The legislation would allow the government to relay cyber threat information to a company to prevent attacks from Russia or China. In the private sector, corporations could alert the government and provide data that could stop an attack intended to disrupt the country's water supply or take down the banking system.
The Obama administration has threatened a veto of the House bill, preferring a Senate measure that would give the Homeland Security Department the primary role in overseeing domestic cybersecurity and the authority to set security standards. That Senate bill remains stalled. The Republican House Speaker, John Boehner, said the administration's approach was misguided.
"The White House believes the government ought to control the Internet, government ought to set standards and government ought to take care of everything that's needed for cybersecurity," Boehner told reporters at his weekly news conference. "They're in a camp all by themselves."
Faced with widespread privacy concerns, Rogers and Rep. CA "Dutch" Ruppersberger , the Intelligence panel's top Democrat, pulled together an amendment that limits the government's use of threat information to five specific purposes: cybersecurity; investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crimes; protection of individuals from death or serious bodily harm; protection of minors from child pornography; and the protection of national security. The House passed the amendment, 410-3.