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Proposed Law Would Give DHS Power Over Privately Owned IT Infrastructure
CelticWhisper writes "H.R. 3674, the Promoting and Enhancing Cybersecurity and Information Sharing Effectiveness Act (PRECISE Act), would allow the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to require improved security practices from those businesses managing systems whose disruption could prove detrimental to critical life-sustaining or national-security initiatives." As the article points out, this is just "one of 30 or so such bills currently percolating on the Hill."
Republicans all scream for "smaller government" yet they happily sign any bill that gives away rights to the Gubment for "fighting TERRORISIM"
Bunch of hypocrites they all are.
It seems that nothing but evil comes out of washington DC anymore.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even as a Democrat, I am getting very tired of our ever expanding Government. However, requiring critical systems like power and transportation etc... to have upgraded security is kind of a no-brainer.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
...is how you win elections.
does the DHS even have the necessary expertise in IT security ?
It really makes me wonder. New laws are being proposed in rapid succession to give organizations more and more power over individuals. What laws are being proposed to save us all from this?
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
So now instead of pitching your IT security related technology to the customer (competing with other vendors), you just need to get really good friends in DHS and they will mandate use of your tehnology?
This is really overdue and your a fool if you think it isn't inevitable. We accept regulation for critical infrastructure like electricity and gas distribution. Why should IT be any different than any other piece of infrastructure?
I've worked with ITIL, SOX, HIPAA, SEC and a number of other regulations or standards for years. They are also largely similar in what they require, once you learn one the others are a quick learning curve. Mostly they are nothing more than attempt to codify best practices that you should be following anyways.
It's like the rail companies that cried foul when regulations required that they install safe coupling mechanisms in the 1800's. The railroads cried foul at the new expenses until they discovered that the regulations ended up saving more in labor than they can cost in parts.
does DHS have for doing this? Despite flushing billions of our tax dollars paying Hamburger University dropouts for irradiating and/or groping the American public with not a single no-so-scarist being caught. As effective as the crystal my dotty Aunt wears around her neck to keep them away and far cheaper. The U.S. gov cant event get their own house in order IT security-wise as department after department fail their audits and fail to meet their mandates, How effective can they be trying to remotely administrate the IT infrastructure of independent businesses/institutions? There is absolutely no evidence that the have the expertise or management skills to perform this function.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
The KGB just called. They'd like an apology.
does the DHS even have the necessary expertise in IT security ?
NCSD of DHS is responsible for all non-DoD government networks and their security. And yes, they do.
It's the Democrats that are trying to raise SOPA from the dead.
But don't let that spoil your primitive tribal reaction.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
does the DHS even have the necessary expertise in IT security ?
Of course not. What a silly question.
Understanding something is not a requirement for supervising it. Ask your boss.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What is it with politicians insisting on giving their bills the most inane titles possible, just to spell out some mildly related acronym? We're electing and paying these people to write LEGISLATION, not commercial branding!
Here is the list of sponsors and co-sponsors.
Representative Daniel Lungren R-CA
Rep. Gus Bilirakis [R, FL-9]
Rep. Peter King [R, NY-3]
Rep. James Langevin [D, RI-2]
Rep. Billy Long [R, MO-7]
Rep. Thomas Marino [R, PA-10]
Rep. Michael McCaul [R, TX-10]
Rep. Candice Miller [R, MI-10]
Rep. Steve Stivers [R, OH-15]
Rep. Robert Turner [R, NY-9]
Rep. Timothy Walberg [R, MI-7]
Yup, that must be a democrat bill.
How did you get modded up?
Both parties are at fault here, not Just Republicans or just Democrats. The problem is that we no longer have a class of "Citizen Legislator" but instead have professional legislators who will do anything in their power to stay in power.
This includes buying votes from the masses by telling them they will get everything free at the expense of someone else - even though our national debt is now so large you could confiscate all the wealth of all the millionaires and still not pay it off - and also letting themselves be bought buy the highest bidder - er - best paying lobbyist.
Of course, to keep it under wraps, you have to both dumb down the general populace, and control all means of dissent. Shut down internet sites that oppose your viewpoint, call anyone who disagrees with you a terrorist and lock them away without any rights, and threaten the livelihood of anyone else who may be bold enough to get around your restrictions.
The only way to stop such non-sense it to VOTE THEM ALL OUT!
Al least it will take a new batch a few years to get so corrupt!
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
is corruption and problems. They ought to be excised and punished as a rogue state. Note, I'm not a right- or left-wing partisan, just an American who grew up when this country was known as the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave."
The TSA ought to be expunged as the totalitarian body they are. The Department of Homeland Security ought to be dissolved and its members stripped of their citizenship and exiled to North Korea on the basis of the name of their agency alone.
The FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, and their attendant bodies need to be spanked firmly for violating the constitutional rights of all Americans over the last 20 years. That means, their Directors and employees who issued and obeyed illegal orders ought to go to prison for the rest of their lives.
If that happened, I'd reckon the integrity of the Republic to have been preserved. But I'm not naive, and I know that that will never happen.
As such, the only answer is for American citizens to bring the government and its backers to justice by force. As a man of peace and a father, I don't relish that at all. But neither do I want my kids to grow up as slaves.
It's sobering indeed to contemplate another 20 years loving and nurturing my family in an increasingly totalitarian country vs. a personal life-ending confrontation with tyranny in the name and cause of freedom. But in my heart I can't see any other way. I was raised a patriot. In my mind and heart I meant the oath we all took to uphold and defend the freedom America stood for. But now the unthinkable has happened and the political entity known as the United States has so far departed from the premise of the oath we took that we cannot possibly reconcile the two; we can either support the path of freedom, or we can uphold the United States.
I know that enough of my compatriots, supposed "left" and "right," share that conviction to make a difference. I know that the subversion of our freedom is not yet widespread enough and deep enough to reverse that bedrock faith. I know that despite the prevalent apathy, supported and abetted by those in power, there is not enough corrosion to avert the will of the American people to assert their freedom.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
As always, always, with government involvement expect these (in no particular order)
The only 'redeeming' quality of this just maybe creation of alternative Internet infrastructure driven by user demand, outside of normal channels, but this will happen much later.
You can't handle the truth.
Three words: "Military Industrial Complex". It's a headless beast now. Eisenhower warned us.
Mathematics are specifically not patentable in the US. See Gottschalk v. Benson.
Now that I have your attention listen to my argument before you mod...
Regulations provide businesses with cover when sorting goes wrong. The argument goes "we did exactly what the rules required so we can't be liable for what happened;" and thus making an argument for mitigating the cost (to them) of the damages.
In addition, regulations add to the cost of doing business, helping shield companies from too many competitors by raising the barriers to entry.
The only "bad" regulation is one that makes it hard for a company to make more profits or opens them up to additional liability.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Could this be used against sites staging protests? Such as wikipedia.org protesting SOPA.
I'm in one of these "critical" industries that will be most likely be included under the benevolent government security umbrella provided by this bill. I've gotten pretty good at predicting how our loving, caring government is likely to respond to this type of challenge, to wit:
After a competitive bid involving only Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft, they will likely hire Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft to tell them what's needed. Unsurprisingly, the solution will include the requirement to purchase lots of expensive products from Cisco, Oracle and Microsoft.
This new regulatory function will obviously need oversight by the government. The government will expand (bloat?) the bureacracy by hiring an excessivly large number of underqualified, overpaid people to monitor compliance with their byzantine rules, which will constantly change to suit their whims. There will be minor incidents, which will be blamed on laziness and non-compliance by the industry. More regulations will be drafted, new equipment will be purchased and the bureacracy will expand even further.
At that point, we commence the never-ending circle of more regulation, more money paid to a select group of "certified" vendors and the unceasing growth of the bureacracy.
- Pithy comment goes here.
Except that that is not the bill being talked about in this article. The bill being talked about in the article is in the Senate, not the House.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
that criminalizes assigning lame-ass, lying acronyms to bills.
... why the congress-critters think they need ANOTHER set of regulations for the electrical power grid (which is one of the primary focii of this proposed law). Are they totally unaware of the NERC/FERC Cybersecurity Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards already in place and being enforced? Standards that have gone through three increasingly tighter and more onerous versions already, with a fourth and fifth version even now under consideration? Standards that are enforced through stringent audits with very high monetary penalties?
Voting machines have effectively eliminated any pretense of public control over government. Your choices are limited to the corporate-approved labels on the buttons.
And no matter what buttons you push, the tallies from the voting machines will say what the controllers of the voting machines want them to say. You have no way to check the validity of those tallies so they are incredibly unlikely to be valid - there's too much power at stake for such an obvious control point to be left uncorrupted.
Lately some states don't even bother to count write-in ballots any more, and most of them are looking into removing the write-in option from their machines.
We're leaving the Republic stage and entering the Imperial era. If we keep following the classical pattern, the next step is civil war, although hopefully long after you and I are both dead.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore," [Rove] continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actorsâ¦and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Annoying it is, but evil it isn't. At least, not always.
It's an unfortunate fact of life that individual freedom works best when the consequences of being stupid also (mostly) fall unto the individual responsible. As long as that's the case, I'm in favour of giving people lots and lots of freedom. It's amusing, instructive, and probably very advantageous too for me to see how they get on. It's like receiving free experimental data.
Alas, in our complex society some parts have become so tightly coupled that safety and security of large swathes of society can be put in acute jeopardy by the mistakes, stupidity, or plain laxness of individuals (or companies). In other words: the consequences of poorly judged actions are no longer limited to the individual (or private enterprise) committing them. And that's where things can suddenly become different.
Allowing the situation to continue unabated and self-regulated simply means that things will go bang a few times before those in charge clean up their act. Simply because that's what people are like. Lazy, stupid, and always on the lookout for ways to cut corners (which by the way has fueled progress and development for centuries).
The only question here is whether you want to pay the price that letting the responsible individuals crawl up learning curve entails, or whether you want to pay up-front the price regulation entails. Nothing 'evil' or 'not evil' about it, just the search for a least-cost solution.
I respectfully submit that there are areas (like in this instance) where you do not want to give people (or private enterprise) the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Instead you want them to either do things in a certain way or quit their business and go away. That's when you regulate, and I think that's what we're seeing here.