CISPA is not SOPA

And therein lies the trouble with the analysis. It is factual, but performed from a perspective of an engineer. An engineer not looking for loopholes and not looking for how to stretch the meaning of the broad wording to attach it to something else entirely.

Attorneys are paid to find the loopholes, and to stretch the meaning of the statutes to fit the desires of their clients. Broad sweeping definitions just make it infinitely easier to stretch the bill's language to make it apply to unrelated areas.

If the bill was honestly and truly meant to be what it purports, then the language would be nice and tight, with no wiggle room to stretch it to fit something else.

For example, here's passage (B)(1)(i) of the bill:

> `(i) use cybersecurity systems to identify and obtain cyber threat information to protect the rights and property of such protected entity; and

The bill does not define "cybersecurity systems" - leaving this term open to be just about anything. Nor does the bill define "cyber threat information" - leaving this term open to be just about anything. So long as they are "protect[ing] the rights and property" of a protected entity.

So, with this broad language, a deep-level packet inspection system sniffing every ISP's users data streams looking for purported copyright infringement would be perfectly legal, because it would be a "cybersecurity system" protecting against "cyber threats" in order to "protect the rights and property" of a "protected entity". Where "rights" is the copyright and the protected entity is a MPAA/RIAA member, and the "cyber threat" is that of supposed lost profits from supposed copyright infringement.

That's the trouble with broadly worded bills. They allow attorneys to stretch them to fit something they were never intended. Read up on "unintended consequences": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences.