Opponents of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013 (CISPA) are challenging sponsor Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) to debate a 14-year-old about the merits of the proposal. The site, TheMikeRogersChallenge.com, was recently launched by Fight for the Future in response to Rogers’ claim that opponents of CISPA are 14-year-old “tweeters” in their basements.

Watch the video:

The site claims it is “confident that even a 14-year-old in a basement could demolish Rogers’ weak arguments for CISPA” and is also seeking an appropriate teen challenger, who must be prepared to send videos of themselves explaining CISPA and pictures of their basement as part of the application process. Fight for the Future also launched the CispaIsBack.org petition shortly after the proposal was reintroduced this year.

In March, Rep. Rogers accidentally tweeted and deleted a link to a story about how Members of the House Intelligence Committee, which Rogers chairs, “received 15 times more from pro-CISPA groups than anti-CISPA orgs.” He also used #CISPAalert in a series of pro-CISPA tweets, apparently unaware that the hashtag was set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and helps fund the fight against CISPA. Data released by MapLight yesterday shows House Members as a whole “have received 16 times as much money ($67,665,694) from interests supporting CISPA than from interests opposing ($4,164,596).”

CISPA is aimed at creating a functional information sharing structure for cyber threat intelligence, but civil liberties organizations, the White House, and a number of security experts and academics believe the privacy protections and regulatory definitions are seriously flawed. The bill passed the House yesterday, but is facing a presidential veto threat similar to the one that killed a 2012 proposal of the same name.

While civil liberties groups have presented a number of fixes for areas of critical concern in the legislation, amendments to resolve privacy issues were largely unsuccessful in the closed House Intelligence committee hearing and opponents remain unimpressed by the version that passed the House. Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) invoked the tragic bombings in Boston during the House debate over CISPA amendments yesterday, claiming that the legislation needed to be rushed through “in the name” of Boston because cyber attacks represented “digital bombs [...] bombs are on their way.”

(Photo: AP/NBC)

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has drawn his own new “red-line” for U.S. intervention in Syria, one that sets the onus for attack far lower than the White House’s.

Rogers, speaking at a conference in Bahrain, said that “the most dangerous days of desperation are starting to take hold” inside Syria which may change the calculus of government. In light of this, Rogers has made clear that he believes the intelligence he’s receiving may call for more direct action by the United States:

“As a coalition, we will have the moral obligation (to intervene) if we can say with even a moderate degree of certainty that these weapons have been prepared and are put in an arsenal for use,” Rogers said. “There are things that we should do, that would meet the world’s moral obligation to prevent the use of chemical weapons that would take the lives of tens of thousands and injure millions of Syrians.”

Rogers comments come at a time when reports are coming out of Syria that chemical weapons are already being prepared for launch. According to sources in the Pentagon, the chemicals that create sarin gas have already begun to be mixed and missiles capable of carrying the concoctions are being readied. Members of the Obama administration, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the last few days that the use of chemical weapons against his people would be the “red-line” to prompt U.S. intervention. Under Rogers’ standard, the United States should currently be in the process of launching military strikes against Syria.

According to reports, the United States and its allies have been planning for contingencies where seizing Assad’s chemical weapons would be necessary to keep them out of the hands of terrorist groups. While chemical weapons, as banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, have a historically low rate of fatality when used in war, they prompt a worry among observers due to the painful after-effects they produce, their indiscriminate nature when used among civilians, and the ease of use of such weapons by non-state actors.

(HT: Foreign Policy)