The results come as Congress moves forward with measures that would set up an infrastructure for companies to share data on digital threats with the government.
Today, the House passed H.R. 1560, 307-116, with 37 Republicans and 79 Democrats opposed. The bill is the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence’s version of the cybersecurity bill, and a vote is scheduled for the Homeland Security Committee’s version, H.R. 1731, tomorrow.
The White House yesterday released nearly identical statements regarding the bills, praising the committees for addressing its most significant concerns while expressing reservations about “sweeping liability protections” and “potentially disruptive defensive measures” that would be authorized in the bills.
In spite of its seeming momentum, privacy advocates both on and off the Hill have expressed concerns about the bills. And similar legislation has previously met with a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
The Senate’s version of the recent cybersecurity legislation, S. 754, passed the Select Committee on Intelligence by a 14-1 vote earlier this month.
If Congress can pass a bill, it will likely score points with voters sensitized to cybersecurity concerns by recent high-profile hacks, like the cyber attack on Sony Pictures that has been linked with North Korea.
But the poll showed an important difference in legislative branding that splits Republican and Democratic voters.
The widest partisan difference emerged over the issues that are the most similar: data security and preventing syber attacks. Data security standards are often discussed at least in part as a method of preventing cyber attacks, though data security also includes information leaks of the more low-tech variety: employee fraud or negligence.
But while imposing standards on data security can read as creating new and burdensome regulation, framing the issue as cyber defense could be seen more in a lens of national security. That potentially makes cyber defense an easier potentially a better sell for conservatives.
Republicans were less likely than Democrats by a margin of 6 percentage points to name data security as their top issue and more likely by a 17 point margin to choose cyber attack prevention.