Obama declassifies parts of cybersecurity plan

Howard Schmidt, the federal government's cyberczar, has been on the job for little more than a month, and all signs are there that he is moving swiftly to harness cybersecurity defenses.

On Tuesday, he announced the declassification of portions of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, created during the Bush administration. It's a strategic plan to harness the nation's defensive and offensive strategies for protecting commercial and government networks. The plan is published on whitehouse.gov.

He told The New York Times in an interview that declassification will not include the entire directive. It is intended to show the public that the government has a clear and workable strategy for protecting the nation's computer systems. Schmidt also said that his office plans to appoint an official to oversee privacy and civil liberties issues.

"In order to be successful against today's cybersecurity threats, we must continue to seek out innovative new partnerships--not only within government, but also among industry, government, and the American public," Schmidt said on whitehouse.gov.

"Transparency improves our collective knowledge and helps bind our partnerships together to form the most powerful cyber tools that we have.  We will not defeat our cyber adversaries because they are weakening, we will defeat them by becoming collectively stronger, through stronger technology, a stronger cadre of security professionals, and stronger partnerships," he added.

For more on the cybersecurity plan deciassification:
- see this whitehouse.gov post
- see this New York Times article

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