Internet Politics - Senate Filibuster Blocks Cybersecurity Bill
At time when cybersecurity is headline news around the world, partisan politics in the U.S. Senate got in the way of new a cybersecurity bill which was different than a bill passed in the U.S. House last April. The New York Times reported that the most vocal opponent of the new cybersecurity bill was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who argued that the law would have been too burdensome. The report went on to describe that the bill:
…would have established optional standards for the computer systems that oversee the country’s critical infrastructure, like power grids, dams and transportation.
The Los Angeles Times headline about the story was “U.S. Chamber of Commerce leads defeat of cyber-security bill,” and reported:
Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were among those who pressed for a White House-backed cyber-security bill to regulate privately owned crucial infrastructure, such as electric utilities, chemical plants and water systems.
Perhaps it will take a major cybersecurity disaster to force the U.S. Congress to come together, like the way the U.S. Patriot Act (“Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism”) was created within one day following 9/11 in 2001.
