Jason Healey, of the Atlantic Council and a one-time White House security official, has been saying for months that nothing was going to get done on cybersecurity this year. He didn't much like CSA anyway.

"To really make a difference, we must fundamentally change the nature of defense and offense," Healey said. "We have to make it much easier to defend than to attack, shifting where we've been for decades. There's little in the bill that makes it probable we'll get there, which means we'll just need another bill in a few years."

Even if the bill had passed, the chances of it surviving a conference committee with the House of Representatives were nil. McCain said as much last week: "There is no chance that the cybersecurity bill ... will have a chance of passage in the House of Representatives," according to Molly Bernhart Walker, writing at .

in CSOonline's Data Privacy section.