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June 26, 2009

White House Announces Cyber Security Plan

By Kennedy Maize

Mixed Reviews

The administration’s cyber security initiative drew mixed responses from the interconnected world. IDG News Service, a wire service covering computer subjects, reported that speakers at a congressional Internet caucus event shortly after the announcement “raised some concerns, particularly that the report is short on details.” Lawyer Stewart Baker, a former policy official at the Department of Homeland Security during the George W. Bush administration, told the wire service that the Obama announcement “is not an indication that this office will be given large amounts of authority.”

The Wall Street Journal reported, “As security experts digested the details of the White House’s cyber security report…, they applauded the president’s acknowledgement that cyber-attacks threaten national security. But some said the report lacked details, and questions swirled around the effectiveness of a ‘cyber security coordinator.’”

Among the unanswered questions in the wake of the Obama announcement are what authority the cyber security czar will have over both government computer communications networks—involving, among other agencies, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, and the Energy Department—and far broader private-sector communications. The private-sector networks include most of the Internet, banking and financial networks, electric and natural gas distribution grids, and the nation’s telephone and telecommunications networks.

—Kennedy Maize is MANAGING POWER’s executive editor.