Obama To Name Melissa Hathaway Cybersecurity Chief

hargrand writes "President Obama has found the cyber tsar to head his new White House office of cybersecurity. According to US press reports this morning, an announcement expected later today will confirm Melissa Hathaway is to come in as cyber chief, after being cyber coordination executive for the director of national intelligence."

Comments

Tsar or Tsaritsa?

[eldavojohn]

President Obama has found the cyber tsar ...

Uh, shouldn't that be tsaritsa?

Or is there something you know about Melissa that we don't?

Re:Tsar or Tsaritsa?

[sexconker]

FYI, "won't never" = "will, on at least one occasion", whereas "never won't" = "will always".

Re:Tsar or Tsaritsa?

[glwtta]

You may or may not be right. The wiki article you linked doesn't make clear if tsaritsa means only tsar's wife or a ruler on its own.

The article actually says in the first sentence that it can mean both. It doesn't come up as much, though, because most of the famous female rulers of Russia were in the 18th century, when the official titles were Emperor/Empress (though Tsar kinda stuck around in foreign translations).

Re:Tsar or Tsaritsa?

[jo42]

There is no way anyone working for Starbucks is a 'barista' or "one who has acquired some level of expertise in the preparation of espresso-based coffee drinks" much less a "a professional who is highly skilled in coffee preparation with a comprehensive understanding of coffee". They just misappropriated the word. Yeah, yeah, I know, off-topic.

why are we using the term in a democracy?

[SuperBanana]

Why do we keep using a term that means, essentially, monarch or "supreme ruler"? Last I checked, these people aren't even members of the cabinet.

They're mid-level federal pencil-pushers, at best- and the only reason she got the job was because she was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, which is basically a government consulting group (aka glorified money sinkhole.)

If that's not a conflict of interest, I don't know what is.

Re:CYBER

[QuantumG]

Cybersecurity is a military term. All military terms are honky, it's the style.

Re:Change

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen her.

Not really.

No picture, but more details

[spun]

Here's her bio, from the announcement for an event, 'Cyber Security Breakfast with Melissa Hathaway' held last month.

Melissa E. Hathaway is Senior Advisor to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Cyber Coordination Executive. She chairs the National Cyber Study Group (NCSG), a senior-level interagency body that was instrumental in developing the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) aimed at substantially improving the ability of the United States to secure and defend its critical cyber national infrastructure. In January 2008, Ms. Hathaway was appointed the Director of the Joint Interagency Cyber Task Force (JIACTF), which coordinates and monitors the implementation of the broad portfolio of activities and programs that comprise the CNCI. In discussions at the highest levels of the U.S. Government, Ms. Hathaway has articulated a holistic, integrated vision to bridge offensive and defensive missions and capabilities to provide a full situational awareness of the Federal network environment and the global cyberspace environment. Her management of the CNCI ensures that this vision takes into account all of the U.S. Government mission areas, including law enforcement, intelligence, military, diplomatic, and homeland security.

Prior to her appointment as Senior Advisor, Ms. Hathaway was a Principal with the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, where her responsibilities focused on leading two primary business units: information operations and long range strategy and policy support. Her consulting efforts supported key offices within the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, including United States Strategic Command, United States Pacific Command, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Net Assessment, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Her work included the design and development of novel techniques for mapping social, business process, and infrastructure relationships. She also led the design and development of a methodology for evaluating new force options across the electromagnetic spectrum. Some of the more significant long range strategy and policy studies on which Ms. Hathaway worked focused on biotechnology, power projection, Asia, and other national security issues.

Earlier in her career, Ms. Hathaway was employed with the consulting firm Evidence Based Research, where she performed research and developed databases to track economic and political issues in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, developed a model to detect the routes and modes and to estimate the quantities of cocaine movement into the United States, and studied other key issues in support of the Intelligence Community.

Ms. Hathaway has a B.A. degree from The American University in Washington, D.C. She has completed graduate studies in international economics and technology transfer policy, and is a graduate of the US Armed Forces Staff College, with a special certificate in Information Operations.