Research Paper
The Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) is legislation in the United States that describes an all-inclusive framework that is used to protect government private information, assets and operations from potential risks. The law was put into place to safeguard the country’s serious information infrastructure. This legislation was signed into law in 2002 under the Electronic Government Act of 2002. The main mission of this law was to secure private information through ensuring availability, integrity and, confidentiality of information.
This act also needs all heads of information departments in government agencies to always conduct regular reviews of information systems. Additionally, inception of this law meant that all government agencies had to come up with a security platform that was meant to safeguard their information systems. The main reason for this was to identify risks at an early stage and, handle them efficiently before they could cause major damage.
The ethical issues that surrounded the creation of this law were the possibility of a future occurrence of a cyber-warfare. It was believed that the ease with which cyber-attacks were going to be carried out would possibly lead to the next world war. This was because according to the United Nations, cyber-attacks between countries would lead to invasion of a country’s private information and this could possibly initiate wars between countries. The US Congress passed this legislation in order to respond to the growing threat of cyber-attacks and the ever rising prominence of information security.
The national economic and security interests of the United States are taken care of by FISMA since it knows the importance of information. Nonetheless, it should be noted that this law has failed to meaningfully strengthen information security. This is because from the legislation’s point of view, information security is primarily treated as a technological problem and, not an economic problem (White, 2010).
Children’s Internet Protection Act, 2000
The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) is a law in the United States that was endorsed by the US Congress in 2000. This legislation was enacted to address the rising concerns about exposure of children under the age of 18 years to offensive or destructive content over the Internet. CIPA required that schools and public libraries that accepted federal funds had to screen all computers that had access to the Internet (“Guide Print”, n.d.). This legislation required that pictures that were considered harmful to minors, obscene and, had elements of child pornography had to be blocked or filtered as a protective measure. Additionally, prior to adopting this safety policy, libraries and schools had to provide a realistic notice and conduct one or more public hearing to address this policy.
Owing to the technological developments of the late 1990s, the use of the Internet became widespread. This meant that even minors had access to the internet. Kids were also exposed to online predators and other unsuitable contents such as explicit chat rooms, pictures of fellow teens taking alcohol and other drugs, online games and sexual messages. This led to a lot of ethical issues that needed to be addressed to protect children from harmful digital content. Before this legislation was adopted, there were no restrictions on what students under the age of 18 years would access while doing their research in the school libraries.
Coincidentally, this law also has some negative effects to kids who are still schooling. Most kids rely on libraries and schools in order to access the Internet. As a result of the Internet screening, most kids do not get the chance to experience the unfiltered web. Filtering the web may have a short term effect in that it protects minors from harmful digital content. However, in the long run, it may deny the kid the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills for navigating the web as a whole.
References
White, D. M. (2010). The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002: A Potemkin Village. Fordham Law Review, 82 (5). http://fordhamlawreview.org/articles/the-federal- information-security-management-act-of-2002-a-potemkin-village
Guide Print Email. (n.d.). Children's Internet Protection Act. Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.fcc.gov/guides/childrens-internet-protection-act
