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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.
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
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. "
Just part of the cycle of power. See The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, a 1987 book about said cycle (summary is last 7 paragraphs). Economic power fosters military power; military power creates special interests, who use their newfound power to accumulate more.
to more directly answer your question:
When exactly did corporate lobbyists BECOME our government?
Post-WWII, certainly, but perhaps earlier. Before then "lobbyists" had to be more secretive... A lot of companies became rich on the second world war trade, and the U.S. has been at war ever since - Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Gulf War I, Yugoslavia, Gulf War II (probably forgetting a couple).
There's also that perpetual "War on (certain) Drugs", which benefits some corporations greatly.
Isn't there a saying about a country with a standing army always needing an enemy to fight?
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
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
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.
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
That's because you're using the wrong dictionary.
Miriam-Webster says:
and American Heritage says:H.L. Mencken, always a good voice for dissent, wrote some profiles of the people that became major power players under The New Deal. Mencken was many things, not all of them comfortable to modern sensibilities, but empiricist was one of them. Check some of his writings on it, such as the collection compiled by Alistair Cook, for some things they don't teach you in history class.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Hmmm... FWIW, the online Oxford English Dictionary also has this definition:
flag, v.
1. To hang down; to flap about loosely.
2. To become limp or flaccid. Now only of plants: To droop, fade
3. Of wings: To move feebly or ineffectually in attempting to fly. Of a bird: To move its wings feebly (in early use also trans. with wings as obj.); to fly unsteadily or near the ground. Obs.
4. To become feeble or unsteady in flight. Hence in wider sense (in early use perh. consciously transf.): To be unable to maintain one's speed; to lag, or fall into a halting pace, through fatigue; to become languid, lose vigour or energy.
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".