Update: Langevin reacts to Obama's cybersecurity plan
4:10 PM Fri, May 29, 2009 | Permalink
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By John E. Mulligan WASHINGTON -- Rep. James R. Langevin expressed concern Friday about whether President Obama has given his new cybersecurity coordinator the kind of clout needed for the job. "I would have liked to see it be an 'assistant to the president','' the Rhode Island Democrat said in a telephone interview about the new position. The creation of a new cybersecurity coordinator's position is a welcome development, Langevin said, but the job was not invested with as much budgetary and policymaking authority as he had hoped. The new position was one of several cybersecurity initiatives that Obama announced in the White House Friday, declaring, "We're not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country," to meet the threat that criminals, terrorists and rival foreign powers pose through attacks on public and private computer networks. Langevin was a leader of a commission that last year recommended an ambitious cybersecurity program for the new president. One of the panel's key suggestions was that the nation's response to the growing threat had to be based in the White House and run by an assistant who reported directly to the president. The report, done under the auspices of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, said there should be a presidential assistant for cybersecurity with a "directorate'' within the National Security Agency. As Langevin described it, the new cybersecurity position that Obama announced Friday does carry membership on the president's national security and economic advisory teams -- but at a lower notch of bureaucratic authority than the CSIS had recommended. Nevertheless, Langevin gave the president "high marks for taking on the cyberspace issue so early in his administration.'' Given the magnitude of the other domestic and foreign policy challenges that Obama faces, Langevin depicted the early action on cybersecurity as a signal of how seriously the president takes the threat to the nation's computer systems. Langevin hailed the president's decision to launch a program to educate the public in computer literacy -- with emphasis on personal responsibility for password security, anti-virus programs and other aspects of cybersecurity. The president on Friday compared the potential security threat from "a few key strokes on a computer" to the danger of terrorist bombings. Obama told a group of about 300 in the East Room of the White House that he would launch the governmentwide computer security effort in collaboration with the private market. The president touched on some familiar horror stories of identity theft, industrial spying and security breaches in government computer networks. "Cyberspace is real and so are the risks that come with it," he said, noting the irony that criminals, terrorists, and rival powers have access to the same powerful computer tools that are transforming the world economy for the better. Obama stressed that his new policy will not include "monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic." He also said that his cybersecurity initiative would let the Internet remain "as it should be: open and free." Extra: Tips on staying safe online, from the National Cyber Security Alliance.
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