Congress gets the blame for fed cyber woes

November 22, 2009 — 11:14am ET | By Judi Hasson

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Cyberattacks
cyber czar
cybersecurity policy
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A former assistant secretary for cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the government's problems coordinating and coming up with consistent cybersecurity policies is partly the fault of Congress. Gregory Garcia, who served as assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications at DHS from 2006 to 2008, said there are too many congressional committees dealing with cyberscurity and too many conflicting proposals coming from lawmakers.

Garcia, for example, said there are eight congressional committees responsible for a portion of cybersecurity policy, according to a report in PCWorld.com. Garcia said some committees want to take cybersecurity responsibilities away from DHS, and others disagree.

"Have a coordinated, leadership-driven process, rather than letting all these committees go off freelancing with their next great idea," Garcia said.

The criticism came last week as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued another in a series of reports asserting that federal IT systems remain vulnerable to a variety of cyberattacks. There are a number of bills in Congress to better coordinate cybersecurity policies. Some would create a White House cyber czar, and take some authority away from DHS while giving it to the Commerce Department or other government entities.

President Obama months ago promised to appoint a White House coordinator and begin a reorganization of cyber policy, saying that the vulnerability of our computer networks represented a serious national security and economic threat. So far, Obama has not followed through on his promise or given direction to Congress. The result has been a series of legislative proposals from various committees in the House and Senate without much coordination. So who is really in charge?

For more on cyber confusion:
- see this PCWorld.com article

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