WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Jim Himes (CT-4) – Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee’s Subcommittee on the National Security Agency and Cybersecurity – issued the following statement today regarding the passage of the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (H.R. 1560) in the House of Representatives. The legislation passed with unanimous support in the Intelligence Committee in March and by a bipartisan 307-116 vote today.

“The repeated cyber-attacks against companies like Anthem, Target and Home Depot, and the national security threat posed by criminals and hostile nation-states, have made it clear that Congress must act to improve our cybersecurity. Today’s strong bipartisan vote to approve this legislation is an important step in better protecting Americans’ personal information and our networks.

 “In my work on the Intelligence Committee, I have worked hard to ensure that this legislation strikes the right balance between protecting our nation’s security and the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens. This bill requires multiple scrubs of private personal information, a real sign of progress on this front, and I also pushed for an amendment that would further improve other privacy aspects of the bill. I will continue to advocate for this provision and others in comprehensive cybersecurity legislation this year.”

The Protecting Cyber Networks Act would create a voluntary system whereby the private sector and government can safely share information to better protect against and combat cyber threats. It would require private companies to scrub personal private information from data shared with a civilian agency, and then would require the government to scrub the information again before reviewing it for cyber threat indicators.