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[infowar.de] Aufruhr im Kongress wg. FOIA-Ausnahmen zu Cybersecurity
Infowar.de, http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath/liste.html
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Thomas Greene hat sich offenbar praechtig amuesiert, als Ron Dick von
der Abgeordneten Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) gegrillt wurde.
RB
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/26386.html
Congress blasts Feds on cyber-terror FOIA games
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 26/07/2002 at 07:10 GMT
There was a fabulous explosion Wednesday during an otherwise typical
cyberterror dog-and-pony show on the Hill when House Government Reform
Subcommittee Ranking Member Jan Schakowsky (Democrat, Illinois) lost
her composure during a discussion of new Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) modifications proposed by the GB Junior Administration as part of
its Homeland Defense initiative.
After a couple of hours filled with warnings about widespread
infrastructure vulnerabilities and exploitable bugs in numerous control
systems, it came time for Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office
(CIAO) Director John Tritak and National Infrastructure Protection
Center (NIPC) Director Ronald Dick to make the pitch for a
controversial exemption from the FOIA applying to all government
records submitted by the industry.
The government has been disappointed in the amount of critical
information flowing to it from the Information Sharing and Analysis
Centers (ISACs) which the Clinton Administration set up for
private-sector vulnerability shoptalk. Industry fears that government
records of their incompetence could end up in the hands of outraged
citizens and journalists, leading to an unfortunate tarnishing of the
sterling reputations enjoyed by the nation's mega-corporations.
Uncle Sam would like to be told more about vulnerabilities and risks
and terrorist targets in the real world out there, and is perfectly
willing to gut the FOIA if that's what it takes to get brought up to
speed.
Schakowsky just about had a fit on hearing this. Why, she wondered, if
the terrorist threat is as real as the government claims, are we
kissing big business' ass and essentially pleading with them to
cooperate? Why not just force them?
"This is a time of a war on terrorism; we're calling on individuals and
businesses to be patriotic," she said. "Because this is so critical to
our national security, we could simply require this rather than pander
to the desires of businesses to keep information secret, an item that
has been on their agenda for many years."
"It astounds me that at a moment in history when transparency in
business is in the headlines every day -- the need for us to know what
is going on in our private sector, which has deprived many of our
citizens of their ability to retire, and employees of their retirement
plans, set the stock market diving because of this lack of
transparency, cooking the books -- that now we want to offer...not a
narrowly-constructed exemption, but a loophole big enough drive any
corporation and its secrets through," she sputtered.
"If a company wants to protect information from public view, they can
dump it into the Department of Homeland Security and say, 'we don't
want anyone to have access to it because it's critical information,'
yet it could be something that communities need to know."
She wanted to know if the government had given businesses any assistance
in dealing with sensitive data under the FOIA as it exists.
NIPC Director Ronald Dick rushed to defend the proposed amendments. "If
there is a request for [trade secrets information] the industry would
have to come forward and discuss in court what it had done to protect
that information," he explained. "So therefore they would have to go
into court and prove, I assume beyond some standard, that they had
adequately protected it in the first place."
That was a bit of a slip, that bit about how the new FOIA will
essentially protect information the companies haven't bothered to
protect for themselves. But the government often rewards incompetence,
so it's hardly surprising.
"We're talking about information that the private sector believes is
sensitive and are concerned about it being disclosed," Dick continued.
"And they have questions as to whether the government can adequately
protect it. What we're recommending is not some broad loophole, but a
measured response in the language that will provide some of the
assurances that will provide better information sharing."
Schakowsky read from the Junior Administration's proposed language,
making it clear that Uncle Sam is prepared to exempt from public
knowledge absolutely anything that relates to infrastructure
vulnerabilities in any way.
Asked why such broad language should be needed, Dick made the mistake
of answering, "the private sector is concerned that if they share
[vulnerability information] then it will become public, and therefore
the bad guys will know it and attack them."
Schakowsky tore into the logical flaw. "So they believe that if they
provide information that's critical to terrorists, this government
under its current laws is just going to let that information out," she
said sarcastically. "It is precisely for that reason that the existing
exemptions were crafted."
Dick never quite replied to that one. It's obvious to any fool that the
government would never willingly release any such information. The
private sector is of course solely concerned with embarrassing
revelations of how badly they're managing their security defenses, and
the liabilities their publication would invite.
Schakowsky knows that Uncle Sam needs and desperately wants this data
and will bend over backwards to coax it from business while steamrolling
the rights of citizens to sue for it, regardless of public interests
buried along the way. She had a couple of good rants; and I have to say
it was refreshing to see a Member of Congress actually understand
something for a change. But the government rationale is fairly well
accepted on the Hill, and these days the word 'terror' works absolute
magic in all political negotiations. It looks like the FOIA is set
become another casualty of the war on terror.
Which is no surprise, really. As occasional Reg contributor George
Smith points out, Cyberwar is Hell.
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