National cyber security initiative

After years of silence on the issue of cyber security Washington's recent flurry of activity is quite astounding and far reaching. The state of affairs has gone literally from silence to the proposition that government become America's firewall.

How is this to be done? Who is going to do it? How will it be monitored? These questions currently are not clearly addressed or fall under the umbrella label of secrecy.

"A chief concern is that virtually everything about the initiative is highly classified, and most of the information that is not classified is categorized as `For Official Use Only.' These restrictions preclude public education, awareness, and debate about the policy and legal issues, real or imagined, that the initiative poses in the areas of privacy and civil liberties. Without such debate and awareness in such important and sensitive areas, it is likely that the initiative will make slow or modest progress. ... "

"The committee also shares the view of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that major elements of the cyber initiative request should be scaled back because policy and legal reviews are not complete, and because the technology is not mature. ..."

"The committee also concludes that some major elements of the cyber initiative are not solely or even primarily intended to support the cyber security mission. Instead, it would be more accurate to say that some of the projects support foreign intelligence collection and analysis generally rather than the cyber security mission particularly. ... That is not to say that the proposed projects are not worthwhile, but rather that what will be achieved for the more than $17.0 billion planned by the administration to secure the government's networks is less than what might be expected."

From: Senate Armed Services Committee, Report 110-335, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009