by Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post
Among the more contentious questions to arise from President Bush’s proposal last month for a Department of Homeland Security is one it did not explicitly address: How should the government deal with threats in cyberspace?
Bush proposed merging various agencies, scattered around the government, that oversee different aspects of computer security. But the fact that the White House’s draft bill doesn’t mention “cyber-security” or its variations set off furious lobbying on Capitol Hill.
Some of the nation’s largest high-tech companies and industry groups say government workers protecting cyberspace should have a higher profile.
“Cyber-security and electronic infrastructure are such a pervasive foundation of everything in our country that we need to raise the focus of that in the legislation,” said Tim Hackman, director of public affairs for International Business Machines Corp. government programs.
Figuring out how to secure cyberspace is more critical now than ever before, given the dependence of government and the economy on computer networks. Studies by government and private researchers have found numerous problems in the digital infrastructure that make it vulnerable to attack.
The Information Technology Association of America and the Business Software Alliance want a Bureau of Cyber Security, headed by an assistant secretary.
“The challenges in the cyber-world are sufficiently different from those in the physical world to merit a separate, focused entity,” the ITAA wrote in a letter that was sent on Tuesday to key members of Congress.
Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) wants a more comprehensive research-and-development program, headed by an undersecretary. The only R&D program now in the bill would be headed by an undersecretary for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures.
“Cyber-security R&D has become a backwater and . . . as a result the nation does not have the tools it needs to foil a cyber-attack,” Boehlert said.
A spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security, Gordon Johndroe, said the government is open to ideas but it believes “the president’s proposal brings together the appropriate agencies in the right form to deal with the threat of cyber-security.”