Lieberman cybersecurity bill goes to Senate floor

It's up to the full Senate now to evaluate the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously approved an amended version of the bill June 24.

The bill, sponsored by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Thomas Carper (D-Del.), would allow the President to order private sector operators of critical infrastructure to "immediately comply with any [cyber] emergency measure or action developed" by the Homeland Security Department. The sponsors are the homeland security committee chairman, senior Republican and a subcommittee chairman, respectively.

The version to be considered by the full Senate differs somewhat from the originally proposed bill. Cyber emergency authority now would come in 30 day increments and after four renewals would require congressional approval to continue.  

Critical infrastructure covered by emergency authority would now need to have certain elements, the destruction of which could lead to mass casualties or evacuations of a prolonged duration, severe economic consequences or severe degradation of national security.

The bill also prohibits the Homeland Security Department--through the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications that the bill would establish in that department--"restrict or prohibit communications carried by, or over, covered critical infrastructure and not specifically directed to or from the covered critical infrastructure unless the [NCCC] Director determines that no other emergency measure or action will preserve the reliable operation, and mitigate or remediate the consequences of the potential disruption, of the covered critical infrastructure or the national information infrastructure." That language is in response to online concern that the bill would create an Internet "kill switch."

Reaction to the amended Lieberman bill has been mixed. The Center for Democracy & Technology called the bill "thoughtful, sophisticated and comprehensive" but said it nonetheless lacks specifics, such as what sort of actions the NCCC can undertake in an emergency.

Senators Kit Bond (R-Mo.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) expressed a more direct kind of criticism by introducing a competitor bill, the National Cyber Infrastructure Protection Act of 2010. Their bill gives DHS considerably less power. "Now is not the time to give the Department of Homeland Security more responsibility, as some of the cyber bills out there want to do," Bond said while introducing the bill on the Senate floor.  

In the House, however, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) has already made good on her promise to sponsor a companion House bill, introducing that legislation on June 16. House leadership referred it to eight House committees for consideration.

For more:
- see the text (.pdf) of the amended Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010
- read statements from Lieberman and Carper on the committee approval of the bill (Collins doesn't appear to have a statement on her website)
- see the CDT response to the amended bill (.pdf)
- go to the THOMAS site for the National Cyber Infrastructure Protection Act of 2010 and read its sponsors' introductory remarks
- keep track of cybersecurity legislation with FierceGovernmentIT's updated Cybersecurity bill roundup, updated with new events

Related Articles:
Section 706 worse than Lieberman bill, says Senate Committee
DHS IG wants US CERT enforcement power, doesn't say how
Guest Commentary: Matt Olney on Lieberman cybersecurity bill
Lieberman says Internet cyber attack response crippled by liability woes