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Tech Lobbyist Named to DHS Top Security Post
An anonymous reader writes "Greg Garcia, a lobbyist for the high-tech industry, has been appointed to fill the new assistant secretary post for cyber security and telecommunications at the Department of Homeland Security. Garcia, a VP with the Information Technology Association of America, will try to resuscitate DHS's flagging efforts to formulate a response plan should the nation's key digital assets come under concerted attack or crumble due to some catastrophic failure. DHS is a little late in filling this post: Congress created it 14 months ago after getting fed up with the agency's lack of progress on cyber issues."
Garcia, a VP with the Information Technology Association of America, will try to resuscitate DHS's flagging efforts to formulate a response plan should the nation's key digital assets come under concerted attack or crumble due to some catastrophic failure.
But what will he do if the tubes become clogged?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Dude. Just put a level 10 firewall around the Gibson, keep a file on all Vanilla Ice wannabees, and have a watchlist for Powerbook Duo owners.
Please help metamoderate.
Information Technology Association of America
Never heard of it. But I have heard of some other *AA's that do not seem to do a very good job of advising Congress on issues important to the people. It figures that a lobbyist, rather than an actual technologist or scientist, would be named to this post.
Look at how badly DHS and the TSA are handling air travel. Now think about how royally they can screw up our information infrastructure.
These are unelected officials making law by fiat. And like anything made by fiat, it's crappy and doesn't run very long until you have to take it to Tony to fix it again.
Well, as a tech industry veteran, he has the protocol all set:
"Calm down, sir, calm down. Now, a disaster you say? How so? Uh-uh.. Uh-uh... Uh-uh.. Hmm, yes, it sounds like your country is infected with a virus alright, and a nasty one too. Here's what you do: You shut down the country, reinstall the government and then you restart the whole thing from the beginning. That should take care of it. Have a nice day now!"
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I wonder how many of these 'former' lobbyists in positions as leadership in governmental agencies get their taxes audited? It would be fascinating to see what kinds of offshore accounts they have, and how their balance changes once they are in a position to 'regulate' the industry they used to represent?
But really - I'm sure this is all done in the purest of intentions. After all, the best people to run agencies are those really familiar with the issue at hand, and cagey enough to know what tricks people out to trick the government are, right? The weight of responsibility of protecting American's safety and well being is best secured when it is in the hands of people who used to press the government to look the other way when industries wanted to maximize... certain negative and positive externalies, shall we say.
Ryan Fenton
When exactly did corporate lobbyists BECOME our government?
Wow, we are really peeling back the foreskin of quality here. You could probably do better shopping for bureaucrats at Wal-Mart.
Network security needs widespread attention to detail. Some guy in a Washington office won't make one jot of difference unless he starts investigating why most government computer services are based on a product that is insecure by design.
The Department of Homeland Security was originally created using an alloy of Bureaucratritum and Administrontium. Sadly, the amount of alloy used exceeded the critical mass, resulting in a Black Hole of un-imagined proportions. Our only hope now is to collide the DHS with another Black Hole of unimagined proportions such as the SSA.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Bring back the trucks.
The problem with your idea is that it makes sense.
He'd be here commenting on this story. The fact that I haven't seen this guy comment on a story about himself on Slashdot makes me wonder just how tech savvy he really is.
Perhaps he could be convinced that information replication is the only way to protect our information environment and that DRM would aid "terrorists" or whatever our Eurasia/East Asia is called nowadays. Then he could prosecute the *AAs for treason.
It seems that a DRM system would be a rather powerful weapon in the hands of an attacker. The ability to revoke or alter all instances of a document worldwide and trusted systems in general would be quite useful to someone wanting attack a country's communications, especially if users and administrators were barred from preventing it at the hardware level.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
If my boss came to me and asked me to formulate a plan on "cyber issues," I probably wouldn't accomplish much either.
Here's a thought, maybe there isn't a damn thing DHS can do about a concerted attack on key points of the internet. Maybe it just isn't possible for one government agency, no matter how disgustingly bloated or invasive, to "protect" a largely private, distrubuted, decentralized, global internet. What are they going to do, mandate that all ISPs and carriers around the world stock up on duct tape? I can't describe the kind of warm fuzzies this whole thing sends down my spine.
I say fsck DHS and the Chimp it rode in on.
Hold on a second, someone is knocking on my doorNO CARRIER
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Unless I'm misreading things, why would someone in a politician role be appointed? We need people who understand the technology, not people who influence bad outcomes in Congress. Net Neutrality, anyone?
Patrick "Diablo-D3" McFarland || http://AdTerrasPerAspera.com
Alright, here's your desk. Basically, you can do nothing and sit on your ass all day. No problem, you bought the privilege. At some point something might cross your desk that we'll tell you to sign to help out our buddies, but otherwise, that'll be about it. However, when disaster does strike, it's your job to basically take up a lot of television time saying that the administration is doing a wonderful job. The President will be out fundraising or stumping or playing a guitar or whatever, so your responsibility is to fill the void. We'll have someone helping you out with that saying "I don't think ANYBODY could have foreseen [insert disaster here]". Probably Condi. Trust us, it's a working system. Later there'll be lots of handshaking and concerned looks, but that'll be about it. When public opinion returns to neutral, if you've done nothing to rock the boat, you'll still have your job, and in a couple of years time, a promotion. It's a great gig -- we take care of our people.
Got it? Ok, now get loafing!
With around 85 per cent of the US critical infrastructure in private hands the post does need someone who can get private companies on board. The chief problem though is that it isn't in shareholder interests to actively help in this program if it cuts shareholder dividends or hurts profits. The only way to rectify this would be for legislation fining companies for insecure critical networks.
Given that this guy is an industry lobbyist and the stance of the Republicans on holding any industry to account I'd expect to see a porcine acrobatic team (the Pink Devils perhaps?) performing over Washington than any real progress being made.
But all this ignores the basic fact; cyber terrorism has yet to materialise beyond a few disgruntled virus writers. As Bruce Schneier has pointed out repeatedly strapping on a suicide belt is far more effective than any form of online attack. If my email goes down I'm inconvenienced, not terrorised.
That could lead to a resonance cascade!
So what, his job is to stop us from bringing toothpaste and water bottles onto the Internet?
How delightful to know that the job is going to someone who won't actually know what needs to be done to solve any problems but will be able to instantly name the companies from whom we need to buy a lot of very expensive goods and services.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Ryan, someone seems to have moderated your post "Funny". Someone's strange sense of humor finds the idea that a former sleazebag (lobbyist) for corporate interests will now have free reign with fat government contracts for cyber security. Sounds suspiciously like another croney named Brown that was in charge of FEMA during Katrina. Some freaking joke.
A news story came out yesterday that these positions under the current administration are given out based on ideological "purity" and agreement with their extremist positions.
The news of this former "lobbyist" being put in charge of cybersecurity makes me want to be sure to keep my antivirus up to date and pray.
Who's had enough of this garbage?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Good job, Brownie. Would it be too much to ask that we get someone who knows something about security to run homeland security? I guess it would...
While 3500 people died in terrorist attacks on US soil in your lifetime, 40,000 people die on the highways every single year.
Homeland Security is about keeping you terrified so you'll continue to let the corporate-owned US government keep taking your rights away.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm still stuck on "flagging". What exactly is a "flagging effort"? Didn't know flag could be used as an adjective. I guess it's an effort that just blows around in the breeze at the whim of the administration.
From Oxford English Dictionary:
flag
noun
1 a piece of cloth or similar material, typically oblong or square, attachable by one edge to a pole or rope and used as the symbol or emblem of a country or institution or as a decoration during public festivities : the American flag. used in reference to the country to which a person has allegiance : the private's heroism served as an example for every soldier under the flag. a ship's country of registry. a small piece of cloth, typically attached at one edge to a pole, used as a marker or signal in various sports : jumped the starter's flag, did he? the ensign carried by a flagship as an emblem of an admiral's rank.
2 a device, symbol, or drawing typically resembling a flag, used as a marker : golf courses are indicated by a numbered flag on the map. Computing a variable used to indicate a particular property of the data in a record.
3 a hook attached to the stem of a musical note, determining the rhythmic value of the note.
verb ( flagged , flagging ) [ trans. ]
1 (often be flagged) mark (an item) for attention or treatment in a specified way : "greatfully" would be flagged as a misspelling of "gratefully." Football charge (a player) with a penalty by dropping a penalty flag : a play in which he was flagged for being offside. figurative draw attention to : problems often flag the need for organizational change.
2 [ trans. ] direct (someone) to go in the specified direction by waving a flag or using hand signals : have him flagged off the course. ( flag someone/something down) signal to a vehicle or driver to stop, esp. by waving one's arm : she flagged down a patrol car. [ intrans. ] (of an official in football, soccer, and other sports) raise or throw a flag to indicate a breach of the rules : the rookie cornerback managed to get flagged for three penalties in one game.
3 provide or decorate with a flag or flags. register (a vessel) in a specific country, under whose flag it then sails : the flagging out of much of the fleet to flags of convenience.
The ability to revoke or alter all instances of a document worldwide and trusted systems in general would be quite useful to someone wanting attack a country's communications, especially if users and administrators were barred from preventing it at the hardware level.
It would also be quite useful to a corporately controlled government who wanted certain, shall we say, inconvenient documents to disappear down the memory hole. Say, something like this one?
--
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
Personally, I would support this move. While there are certainly matters of personal freedom involved, I would pay any price, bear any burden, undertake any action possible to save a new generation from "Ice Ice Baby". Secret prison camps with sound-proofed walls filled with upper-middle class white kids with bad hair and the mistaken impression they're hip? It's not just something I'd accept, it's something I'd encourage!
Please, DHS, please! Think of the children! Think of the children who, 15+ years later still have to hear this crap on early 90's compilation CDs! Do not make the same mistake with the coming generation, nip this threat in the bud!
Who they put in charge of what. If a particular group, terrorist or not, decides to crash the web it is going to happen. There is no stopping extremest actions, this is being proven everyday. Sure you will catch some of them, but it is there is always that one that gets through.
IF you can't be famous be infamous. But for GODS sake be something
...suicide terrorists committed to taking down the great satan attacked some buildings full of office workers rather than targeting say some nuclear plants, or large refinery/chemical complexs? If you wanted the most damage for your act, why choose targets like they apparently did? They could have hit some LNG area and made quite a big kaboom out of it with even more damage. Or say some huge area that as holding ammonia or some other nasty chemical where the fumes would have drifted downwind? They could have really borked a nuke plant, I don't care how tough they say they are built, it would have been a mess. But no, they hit a rather precisely defined area of the pentagon that was mostly unoccupied and under reconstruction, and a couple of buildings that were facing the fact of being ordered to be torn down due to asbestos contamination with a resultant cost in the multi billions.
Some rather odd occurrences that day...
Un-freaking-believable
When faced (once again) with the cold hard truth of their absolute and total incompetance, the US government responds by putting a lobbyist in charge to right the ship.
Of course the "savings" will get passed on to us.
Can you run Linux on him?
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Look at it this way:
My guess is the only striking difference is: they don't spend half their time trying to get re-elected. Now, this could be a good thing, or this could be a bad thing, I suppose.... an incompetent worker spending half his time trying to get re-elected just might be better than an incompetent worker devoted to his "work".. or is he/she?
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
To regurgitate more of TFA, 'Ralph Nader has criticized the automobile safety agency as nothing more than a lap dog for the auto industry. The consumer advocate said NHTSA "is now a consulting agency to Detroit and federal regulation is essentially dead.'
Old news, maybe. At least Hakia is cool. I was thinking I'd rather have someone with experience in the area to run DHS but on the other hand, lobbyists can probably kick ass too, and it's probably safer in the end to have them busy making money instead of of busy handing out parking tickets. Is it legal for a lobbyist to run the DHS?"
You must be blissfully unaware of the past 5-6 years of administration appointees. I almost envy you. Nearly ALL appointees over any sort of regulatory watchdog, scientific fact-finding, or pork-laden government spending bureau of the government has been an industry lobbyist of some sort who is assured to make sure that said industry (which donates lots of money to the Republicans) will make out like a bandit (literally) on the taxpayer's dime or taint and all evidence that gets in the way of said industry's profits.
...No really, 7 ridiculous arguments straight from the horse's mouth! (How's FEMA workin' out there, HF?)
Read more here:
Bush Has Appointed Over 100 Lobbyists as 'Regulators'
WhiteHouseForSale.org | Contributors and Paybacks Articles
Evidence that this has been a pattern of behavior as far back as when he was governor.
Some info on two of the officials reviewing the Dubai Ports World deal
An even longer list of crony appointees
The Bush administration is one of the more shameful examples of cronyism in modern US history. The term "conflict of interest" doesn't begin to cover it. Then, when you can't find a person with experience as an industry shill, you can always go to political advocates with no experience in the field (but solid Bush support):
Michael Brown's two political appointees deputees in FEMA
A petition for Bush to make political appointments with a list of 6 good examples
The Hertiage Foundation even endorsed making political appointees over experienced civil servants in 2001!
Why, just look how many Heritage Foundation flacks are now in the administration.
Any wonder why the DHS hasn't done hardly anything useful, why FEMA had someone with no emergency relief experience installed as it's head, why scientists are abandoning NASA, the EPA, the CDC, etc. in droves, and why hundreds of IRS agents that audit capital gains and estate taxes have been downsized? It's government with the wheels taken off -- oriented explicitly to do nothing but enrich special interests by people who have publicly stated that that's all they believe the government exists to do in the first place.
What, you didn't think they meant that they'd try to STOP it when they said that, did you? Yeah, I was fooled too, but not anymore. It's time we get people back in power who believe that the government is meant to serve the people. People who believe that it's part of the solution and not part of the problem. Otherwise, as we've seen, the temptation to just exploit "the problem" is just too much.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you think a lobbyist is a good choice for a homeland security position, consider what his group has lobbied for.
In a conference call with voting machine makers, the ITAA proposed conducting a campaign on their behalf, in exchange for $100,000 to $200,000 per company, depending on the services provided.
The ITAA president told Computerworld that criticism of voting machines was just a "religious war".
Now, If you're on the public sector side and attempting to protect national interests and understand the global scope of the infrastructure involved, how do you go about that? I would argue that it's hard even under the best conspiracy-theory/tinfoil-hat environment. You have to first get people to show up and without legislation forcing people to show up (read: industry regulation), it is hard to be completely effective.
I think he'll do the best job he can under the circumstances, which is challenging to say the least. These people who work in DC doing these jobs have incredible stamina to put up with challenges that i suspect 99% of people reading this would be unwilling to stand at their job. To get simple things done sometimes can literally take an act of congress. And you thought your boss was slow and intrusive, think about having the GAO coming in and interviewing you every few weeks about how your job is going and what you've done recently on topics X, Y and Z.
While there are those people that I think are truly "evil" in this space, people who take public sector jobs like this are rarely the type. Just think, next virus outbreak or internet worm everyone is gonna be clammoring at you for what's going on. Starting from the tech savvy Senator Stevens(R-AK) asking about his e-mail to those that actually "get-it". I don't envy him this job/work but I do wish him the best of luck. I will point him to this discussion and conversation just to make everyone here happy though ;)
Is it any surprise that the Bush White House hired a) a lobbyist hack b) mouth-foaming ideologue or c) a personal golfing buddy for a crucial job such as securing our national IT infrastructure? Remember, when Katrina hit NOLA, FEMA was being run by guy whose last job was judging horse shows. Dollars to doughnuts that this new under secretary starts handing out major Cyber Security contracts to Bush's "pioneer" contributors or his "Father's brother's former roommate". Business as usual.
Putting somebody who lobbies for various security companies in charge of designing the security used by DHS creates an immediate conflict of interest. How are we going to know that he's not pushing a given solution because it would keep his (former?) handlers happy as opposed to because it's a good thing. Furthermore, a lobbyist is good at getting other people to do (sometimes stupid) things that you want them to do -- This doesn't necessarily (or even usually) mean that this lobbyist is actually especially knowledgable about the field that (s)he is promoting in. Lobbyists only need to know enough information to sway their target.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Right you are, good citizen, with ITAA being the number one promoter of the offshoring of ALL American IT jobs!!! Anyone doubting this, just Google "Information Technology Association of America" + "offshoring". Man oh man....these clowns just when to put that blade in deeper and deeper.
It's all about offshoring - with the ITAA being the chief promoter of offshoring American IT jobs over the past 6 years.....
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Cyber tech security is unpredictable.we will never know how secure is a data over the network. Cyber attcks like spamming, cracking and injecting may occur secrectly behind the running programs in a situation where the user is totally unware on what is happening.Being a lobbist in this area,is kind of sitting in front of a monitor without not knowing the upcoming dangers. but it will be ok to accept the job is programs in computer are programmed with secured codes and keep an eye on everything tht runs in the PC.
cyber attckers caused by users and affectd by users