The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act reached another milestone as the House Intelligence Committee passed the cybersecurity bill with an 18-2 vote.

The authors of the bill, House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), are positive that this approval would result in a domino effect, leading approval through the House.

“What we came up with, we think, is the right approach. It is the one bill out of everything you’ve seen on both sides of this great institution of the United States Congress that protects a free and open Internet and allows people to share cyber threat information to protect their clients, their business, their [personally identifiable information],” Rogers told reporters. “It’s been a work in progress.”

The bill wants to promote open communication between the private sector and the government regarding malicious cybera ctivities.  But the fact remains that private sectors divulging information to the government could lead to privacy issues with their clients.

Not everyone was happy with how things turned out as amendments regarding how far the government can collect data wasn’t considered.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) proposed the amendments that would have “required that companies report cyber threat information directly to civilian agencies, and maintained the long-standing tradition that the military doesn’t operate on U.S. soil against American citizens.”

CISPA has been controversial from the get-go as it threatened Americans’ privacy.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that the language used in CISPA was too vague that it’s open to various interpretations that could lead to the government overreaching into people’s lives.

Because of the privacy issues involved in this bill, people aren’t too keen on having this bill passed.  A petition against CISPA was launched in We the People, a section of the White House website, and received over 100,000 signatures to have the bill be reviewed again before a vote was to take place in order to amend some of its provisions.

President Barack Obama hasn’t responded to the petition and it looks like he isn’t about to stop CISPA from being passed as he previously urged the Senate to pass the cyber security bill stating that cyber threats should be taken seriously and this bill is needed to stay ahead of its adversaries.

Last year, CISPA was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives with a 248 to 168 vote.  Though it seems like CISPA may soon be passed into law, it still has to be passed by the full House.  Voting may happen as early as next week.