America’s Upside Down Cyber-Priorities

[Commentary] The government’s cyber-priorities are backwards. It has chosen bits over bodies, defending the virtual world of ones and zeroes more than the real world of people and homeland security. Through its deeds, it has prioritized net neutrality openness to the detriment of cybersecurity and a more secure Internet. As a result, Americans, American businesses, and America, are less safe and secure today and tomorrow than they could or should be.

Many Americans have heard much more from the US Government about what it’s doing to protect against the potential for Internet traffic discrimination by American Internet service providers under the banner of “net neutrality,” than they have heard about what it is doing to protect Americans, businesses, and the homeland from actual foreign and domestic bad actors, attacks and breaches. How did America’s cyber policy get so defeatist that the US Government is effectively telling America that it can it can no longer reliably protect its citizens, employees, businesses, sovereignty, or national secrets from foreign enemies or criminals? This travesty happened, at least in part, because the US government has politically prioritized extreme net neutrality openness over common sense, smart network, cyber security. The US government’s upside-down cyber priorities are a systemic risk. That’s because the US government continues to chase a solution in search of a problem, network neutrality, at the expense of a real and serious problem, the homeland’s cyber insecurity. Why isn’t a more safe and secure Internet a national cyber priority?

[Scott Cleland is President of Precursor LLC]