On Jan. 25th, 2012, Gautham Nagesh reported for The Hill on comprehensive cybersecurity legislation. During the State of the Union address, President Obama called for Congress to immediately pass cybersecurity legislation. According to the article, Congress has heard that call. The article quoted Sen. Joe Lieberman as saying:
"The President's call for Congress to pass cybersecurity legislation . . . is nothing less than a matter of national security. The Secretary of Defense has warned that the next Pearl Harbor could be a cyber attack."
The Senate is supposed to take up a cybersecurity bill in the coming weeks. I'm not sure which one; there are several proposals floating around out there. Nevertheless, it appears certain that the bill will place cybersecurity responsibility in the hands of DHS and will focus on threat-information sharing with the private sector.
The article quoted a few representatives as promising passage of cybersecurity legislation. However, for all these high-minded promises, passage of cybersecurity legislation still has a few obstacles. Notably, there are political differences between the White House's proposal, the Senate Democrats' proposal, and the House Republicans' proposal. These differences revolve around whether to use strict regulations (the Democrat approach) or to use an incentive-based approach (the Republican approach).
You can find The Hill source article here.
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