Cyber Czar

By Brad

With more and more government business being dependent upon the Internet, cybersecurity is of utmost importance.

With President Obama’s 60-day comprehensive review of US cybersecurity still underway, Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) on Wednesday introduced sweeping legislation that would establish a cybersecurity “czar” within the White House and bring both governmental and private sector “critical infrastructure” under a unified regulatory regime.

The “czar”—more precisely, an Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor within the White House—is established in a separate short-but-sweet bill running a mere three pages. It specifies that the post will be subject to Senate confirmation, and it gives the cybersecurity advisor a backstage pass to all of the federal government’s cyber-related “special access programs,” a designation given to highly secret initiatives.

The full text of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 can be found here.