From Fierce Government:
| By Molly Bernhart Walker |  Comment |  Forward |  Twitter |  Facebook |  LinkedIn |
 In 3 to 4 weeks, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to introduce cybersecurity legislation, but it won't truly fix anything--at most legislation will "raise the price of admission for the cyber battle," said Tommy Ross, Reid's senior intelligence and defense advisor."There's simply not going to be a technological solution that stops the most sophisticated foreign actors from successfully carrying out cyber attacks if they chose to do so," said Ross Jan. 17, while speaking at the State of the Net conference in Washington, D.C. "The best we're going to do is put in place a system that [makes it harder and more expensive for a] less sophisticated actor," said Ross. And for more sophisticated actors, the United States will have to rely "on diplomacy, on deterrence, on intelligence and on other sorts of national policies that help us engage with foreign adversaries that might wish to carry out cyber attacks on that level," he said. The cybersecurity conversation on the Hill has come a long way in the last year, said panelists. Most lawmakers now understand that passing a cyber bill won't signal completion and then they can be done with it, said Kevin Gronberg, senior counsel to the House Committee on Homeland Security. "This might as well be called the congressional work programs," Gronberg joked. Ross agreed that legislation will have to be iterative and will rely heavily on the amendment process. In addition to Reid's forthcoming proposal in the Senate, House committees are also working on legislation. "The Lieberman-Collins bill [introduced in the previous Congress] was cut and pasted, introduced in the house and referred to nine different committees, which gives nine different chairman abilities to change or stop that bill completely. The speaker recognized this was a problem," said Gronberg. A cybersecurity task force, led by Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) formulated cyber guidance and passed it along to committees in October 2011, asking each committee to draft legislation that applies to their area. On Feb. 1 the House Homeland Security subcommittee will mark up a draft, with a full committee having a markup shortly thereafter, said Gronberg. "As for the process, after we report this bill out to the whole House it's a bit unclear," said Gronberg. The bills could be passed separately off the floor and conferenced with the Senate bill. Or they could be held in the house and combined for a broader bill, Gronberg said. The White House does agree with the House cybersecurity task force's recommendations to each committee "in concept," said Christopher Finan, director for cybersecurity legislation on the White House National Security Staff. For more: - watch an embedded video from the session |
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