Recap of "Cybersecurity: Network Threats and Policy Challenges"

On Friday, the House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing on cybersecurity. Witnesses testified that the cybersecurity chief named to battle Internet viruses and larger challenges facing the information technology networks used by US companies and national defense should be based in the White House. Cybersecurity is important enough to warrant a White House staffer with real authority and a real budget, said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance and one of those who made recommendations to the Obama team. But Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, said his group had urged that the task of ensuring cybersecurity be given to the Department of Homeland Security, not the National Security Agency, or NSA, which is responsible for breaking codes and electronic spying. The NSA, he argued, was ill-suited for the job of ensuring that the lightly regulated Internet was kept up and running. "I think it's a very difficult thing for them to handle," he said. Rep Anthony Weiner (D-NY) noted that no witnesses from the Obama administration attended the hearing. "The obvious reason is I don't think they know yet what their policies are," he said.