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."

Comments

I suggest taking away the beverages

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:I suggest taking away the beverages

[ScentCone]

These are unelected officials making law by fiat.

So. You think we should actually include positions like "Deputy Undersecretary Of Transportation for Ice Cream Truck Regulation" part of the general federal election? How about his boss? And his boss's boss? And above him? Oh, right, we already do that. Was the Secretary Of Transportation under Bill Clinton acting according some idyllic democratic principle, but the same role under a different administration is suddenly Junior Ceasar?

Wake up. We elect an executive administration specifically to get things done, and they appoint people into thousands of roles as part of that job. Every administration has different priorities and policies, but if they had to try to get anything done while dealing with - what, thousands of departmental bureaucrats all of whom had to run campaigns to get their office? - you'd have absolutely no ability to focus on anything.

Every four years you get to vote for the person who appoints such people, and every 4 or 6 years, you get to vote for the legislators that fund what they do (or not).

So, what's your problem? Don't like the reality of the structure of the executive branch of government, or just don't like it when you don't like who happens to head it at certain times? Or maybe, as is more likely, you know all of this and you're just trolling in hopes of scoring some lame political points with whatever percentage of this audience actually does not know how it works, and wants to hear you paint some Emperor image of the presidency. Just remember, if you ever to get together enough votes for someone you do like better, whatever FUD you spread about the nature of the office and its interaction with other agencies is going to impact that person, too.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

[RyanFenton]

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

Fancy titles don't fix problems

[geoff lane]

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.

Re:crumble? resuscitate?

[eyeye]

He will get laws passed that make fantastic profits for the companies he lobbies for.

US politics 101

If he was REALLY a tech veteran

[Mantrid42]

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.

Duh!

[misleb]

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

Public/private is the issue

[99luftballon]

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.

Re:Public/private is the issue

[planetmn]

Yes, if your email goes down your only inconvenienced, but that's not the "doomsday scenario" envisioned to combat against. There are many areas of our economy and society that now rely on the internet in some way, shape or form. Imagine if all of a sudden all ATMs stopped working, bank tellers couldn't access accounts and credit cards stopped working. On a small scale, it's no big deal really. But on a nationwide scale, it causes panic. Remember, people don't react rationally (hell, I yell at the TV set, and I know that's not rational).

More and more of our telecommunications infrastructure is potenetially vulnerable. And without the ability to check up on friends and family, a physical attack would be magnified by the psychological impact of not being able to see if somebody is ok and the worrying involved.

So an attack on our network infrastucture could be very bad for the US. Do I think it's likely? No. But in 2000 if you asked me if I thought terrorists would be able to hijack four airplanes simultaneously and crash them into buildings, I'd have probably said no. It's not the body count that hurts us most, it's the psychological effects. We were attacked here on our soil by a foreign enemy, and that was something new to us.

I don't think that this lobbyist is going to help us, but then again, I've become more and more cynical about our government being able to accomplish anything (whether it be in regards to rights, terrorism, foreign affairs, or even the tax code) so I'm not exactly unbiased. It's easy to say that cyber terrorism hasn't really caused any problems, and never will. And you'll probably be right for a while. But eventually, there is a good chance that statement will be proven false.

-dave

No surprise at all.

[PopeRatzo]

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?

A lobbyist???

[sm62704]

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.