Cyber-Security Czar To Be Named

The Washington Post and everybody else is reporting that on Tuesday President Obama will name Howard A. Schmidt as cyber-security czar. Schmidt was an advisor to President Bush on cyber-security matters. The Post rehearses the reasons why the Obama administration has had difficulty in finding someone for the post, and notes that the turf battles did not start in this administration: "Schmidt was chosen after a long process in which dozens of people were sounded out. Many declined the post, largely out of concern that the job conferred much responsibility with little true authority, some of them said. Meanwhile, the cybersecurity chief at the National Security Council, Christopher Painter, has served as the de facto coordinator, trying to push ahead the 60-day cyberspace policy review plan unveiled by Obama in May. That plan's formulation was led by Melissa Hathaway, who resigned in frustration in August after delays in naming a cyber-coordinator. She had been a contender for the position... Schmidt served as special adviser for cyberspace security from 2001 to 2003 and shepherded the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a plan that then was largely ignored. He left that job also frustrated, colleagues said."

Comments

Here comes XKCD

[readthemall]

Secretary: 1 through Secretary: 5

It's not even practical

[MikeRT]

Each federal department behaves differently. Agencies like the various DoD support and intelligence agencies, not to mention the CIA which is its own separate agency unto itself from any department, are not going to let the yahoos from Homeland Security or Justice tell them what to do or even be in on the conversation about how they organize and communicate, especially with regard to classified information.

A cyber-security czar who cannot command the CIA and DoD agencies is quite literally one with no practical authority since those groups are the majority of what matters with real, important IT security in the federal government.