The Hill reports that Sen. Reid will move the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 to the Senate floor for consideration, bypassing markups or other committee meetings on the legislation. It’ll be interesting to see how the reaction to this plays out in tomorrow’s hearing.
Also, Stewart Baker, one of those testifying tomorrow, has posted his written remarks. You can view it here. Below is a brief excerpt:
Thanks to growing cyber insecurity, all Americans now live in a digital New Orleans, with Katrina just offshore. And not one Katrina, but many. Computer exploits that we once thought were the work of large nations such as Russia or China now seem to be within the capability of countries like Iran and North Korea. If I am right that computer insecurity continues to grow worse each year, then the sophistication needed to launch a cyberattack will continue to decline, and soon such attacks will be within the capability of criminal gangs and online vigilantes like Anonymous.
Disaster is not inevitable. We can head this threat off if we treat it seriously. We may have years before suffering an attack of this kind. We do not have decades. We must begin now to protect our critical infrastructure from attack. And so far, we have done little.
Marvin Ammori 