[x-pubpol] USA: Security Bills Bruised by Lingering Fight

[Joly MacFie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/technology/digital-security-bills-bruised-by-a-lingering-antipiracy-fight.htm


Representative Dan Lungren, Republican of California, who recently
introduced a computer security bill, acknowledged that Capitol Hill had
learned some lessons about the new political muscle of technology companies
and their users.

“One of the things we learned is that we have to raise the debate such that
no one believes things are being done behind closed doors,” Mr. Lungren
said in a phone interview.

A Congressional aide who did not want to be named because he was not
authorized to speak to the media, put the lessons of the antipiracy efforts
more bluntly. Some members, the aide said, “were kind of scarred by that
experience and don’t want to go down any road where they are viewed as
regulating the Internet.”

In fact, the latest network security bills do not regulate the Internet,
and it is not clear whether they will gain popular traction, either for or
against.

The Senate computer security bill is expected to be introduced as early as
Friday by Joseph I. Lieberman, Susan M. Collins and John D. Rockefeller IV.
It would give the Department of Homeland
Security<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/homeland_security_department/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
regulatory
authority over those essential services companies where an attack could
jeopardize human life or national security. It would compel critical
infrastructure companies and government agencies to share information about
threats and breaches, and would give the government power to impose
sanctions on companies that run afoul of the law.

Details of the bill are still being negotiated. A hearing on it is
scheduled for next week.

The House version of the bill, which Mr. Lungren proposed in December and
is expected to come before a full committee in coming weeks, allows
Homeland Security to lay out performance standards on security, but does
not give it explicit powers to regulate.

Kevin Richards, vice president for government affairs at TechAmerica, a
trade group that represents large government contractors like Lockheed
Martin, said its members were wary of the government’s telling them what to
do. “When it comes to the tech community and Capitol Hill, we look at two
cardinal rules,” Mr. Richards said. “First is, ‘Do no harm.’ Second is,
‘Beware unintended consequences.’
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