“The government in return has said that if they get information that’s unrelated to cyber security they “may” -- don’t have to, but may choose to -- remove some of the implications toward civil liberties. But they don’t have to and there’s no real guidelines on what they would have to do about it,” she says. “What we want[are] actual laws in place that make that impossible or difficult. In the very least that if the government wants personal information about users of services including the content of e-mails they [have to ] go to a judge and get a warrant.”

Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, has also weighed in on behalf of that industry organization. Garfield said 95 percent of the data breaches that take place on the Internet are breaches of people’s personal information -- things like social security numbers and credit card numbers. “This is really about protecting the people who are a part of the Internet ecosystem on an everyday basis and that’s why it’s so critically important,” he says.

He also makes the point that CISPA doesn’t mandate that companies give the government information, but that doing so is voluntary.

As for why cyber security is so important now, Garfield says it’s a problem that just keeps getting worse and he points to data that said between 2009 and 2010 there was an increase of 93 percent in cyber security breaches.