Washington—Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) today made the following statement on the hack of T-Mobile and Experian:

“We woke up this morning to news of the latest major breach of personal information through a cyber hack, with 15 million people’s private information stolen from T-Mobile and Experian. For months, we have been trying to pass important, balanced legislation to help companies get the information they need to stop losses like this. Despite strong bipartisan support in the committee and the Senate, and support from the administration and the business community, there are some groups that are opposing the bill out of a knee-jerk reaction against any communication between the government and industry. If these special interest groups are successful in mischaracterizing this bill, which authorizes purely voluntary sharing, they will only succeed in allowing more personal information to be compromised to criminals and foreign countries.”

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 includes strong commitments to personal privacy, while spurring the information sharing that is necessary to stop future cyber-attacks before they happen, not after Americans personal, financial, and private information is stolen by foreign agents and criminal gangs. This legislation creates a cybersecurity information sharing environment that allows all participants to get a better understanding of the current cybersecurity threats that may be used against them.

Compliance with the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act is entirely voluntary. The bill was reported out of committee on March 3 on a vote of 14-1.

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