Chinese Telecoms Hit Hard in Senate Judiciary 5G Hearing

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he wished US allies could view a copy of May 14's hearing on 5G cybersecurity to see the uncommon bipartisan agreement that Chinese technology is a threat to the safety and security of the Internet of everything next-gen wireless broadband will drive. The hearing's first panel featured Christopher Krebs, director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Department of Homeland Security, and Robert Strayer, deputy assistant secretary for cyber and international communications and information policy at the State Department. They said the key is for companies and countries to take a "risk-based" assessment of their 5G network buildouts, an assessment that would almost certainly exclude Chinese telecoms. The good news, those officials suggested, was that the four major US wireless carriers had agreed not to employ technology from Huawei, ZTE and other potential security threats. Chairman Graham tried to get the officials to state, plainly, that the US policy with its allies should be that we won't share info or connect to their networks if they include Chinese telecom tech in their 5G networks. The officials would not go quite that far, but likely only because of the practical and diplomatic consequences of such a binary choice.