[Infowarrior] - White House Delivers Cybersecurity Plan To Hill

[Richard Forno]

White House Delivers Cybersecurity Plan To Hill
By Jennifer Martinez and Mike Allen
Politico
May 12, 2011 at 09:20 GMT-4 (EDT)

The White House will formally deliver a cybersecurity legislative proposal to Congress on Thursday morning, including recommended updates to current U.S. cybersecurity laws, a senior administration official told POLITICO. "The administration has taken significant steps to better protect America against cyberthreats, but it has become clear that our nation cannot fully defend against these threats unless certain parts of cybersecurity law are updated," the official said.
The White House will formally deliver a cybersecurity legislative proposal to Congress on Thursday morning, including recommended updates to current U.S. cybersecurity laws, a senior administration official told POLITICO.

"The administration has taken significant steps to better protect America against cyberthreats, but it has become clear that our nation cannot fully defend against these threats unless certain parts of cybersecurity law are updated," the official said.

The Obama administration is eager to work with Congress to enact cybersecurity legislation this year. The White House has been working on its plan for more than two years now.

The White House's legislative proposal recommends improvements to the country's "critical infrastructure" and the federal government's networks and computers, according to the official.

Suggested improvements to cybersecurity law often raise concerns from advocacy groups about civil liberties and privacy.

The official said the White House is eager to hold broad discussions with industry, privacy advocates and the wider community. The White House proposal "strikes a critical balance between strengthening security and preserving privacy and civil liberties protections," the official said.

The proposal marks the first major cybersecurity proposal from any administration and, the official told POLITICO, “we are we are demonstrating President Obama's commitment to addressing complex and systemic national vulnerabilities that place the American people and economy at risk.”

The Senate hasn't put forward a cybersecurity bill yet, but Commerce and Homeland Security committee aides have spent more than a year working on a compromise between cyber reform bills introduced last session, including those introduced by Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the Homeland Security panel, told POLITICO earlier this month that part of "the holdup has been that the administration has yet to present its plan."

Cybersecurity has also captured the attention of Congress after hackers recently breached the systems of both Epsilon and Sony, gaining access to consumers' personal information. The House recently held a hearing on the data breaches. Rockefeller sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday asking that it direct companies to report when hackers may have breached their systems or when their networks have undergone an attack, which his office made public Thursday.

On Monday afternoon, the White House plans to hold an event where it will release the administration's international cybersecurity strategy, POLITICO has learned. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano are expected to attend. The event will be hosted by the administration's Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt and Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan.

Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54826.html