Legislation to Address the Growing Danger of Cyber-Threats

To follow up on his State of the Union speech, I would like to highlight a few key points about the legislation the President mentioned that we sent to the Congress last May to secure our country from the growing danger of cyber-threats.

The Administration sent the Congress a package of legislative proposals in May 2011 to give the federal government new authority to ensure the corporations that own the assets most critical to our nation’s security and economic prosperity are adequately addressing the risks we as a nation all share. Additionally, our proposals would provide new tools to help our citizens and law enforcement professionals defend against cybercrime and identity theft, while, at the same time, safeguarding individuals’ privacy and civil liberties. Further, our proposals would give the federal government new authority to share information about cyber threats with businesses, and when asked, provide them with federal assistance to prevent attacks and defend against the theft of intellectual property, which, when stolen, erodes their corporate competitive advantages among global peers and our competitiveness as a nation. Our legislative proposals will move us toward accomplishing these goals, and while the task of securing our nation is never done, enacting them would be an incredibly important step. At the same time, addressing only a portion of these needs by our cybersecurity professionals will continue to expose our country to serious risk. For example, only providing incentives for the private sector to share more information will not, in and of itself, adequately address critical infrastructure vulnerabilities. The American people expect the federal government to work with the private sector to ensure our critical infrastructure is protected. Our professionals in the federal government, as well as those in state, local and private sector entities need new legislatively-enacted authorities to do so.