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Congress Seeks To Outlaw Cyber Intel Sharing With Russia (onthewire.io)

Posted by BeauHD on from the not-on-my-watch dept.

Trailrunner7 shares a report from On the Wire: A group of House Democrats has introduced a bill that would formalize a policy of the United States not sharing cyber intelligence with Russia. The proposed law is a direct response to comments President Donald Trump made earlier this week after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. After the meeting, Trump said on Twitter that he and Putin had discussed forming an "impenetrable Cyber Security unit" to prevent future attacks, including election hacking. The idea was roundly criticized by security and foreign policy experts and within a few hours Trump walked it back, saying it was just an idea and couldn't actually happen. But some legislators are not taking the idea of information sharing with Russia as a hypothetical. On Wednesday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) introduced the No Cyber Cooperation With Russia Act to ensure that the U.S. doesn't hand over any cybersecurity intelligence on attacks or vulnerabilities to Moscow. Recent attacks such as the NotPetya malware outbreak have been linked to Russia, as have the various attacks surrounding the 2016 presidential election. "When the Russians get their hands on cyber intelligence, they exploit it -- as they did last month with the NotPetya malware attack targeting Ukraine and the West. It is a sad state of affairs when Congress needs to prohibit this type of information sharing with an adversary, but since we apparently do, I am proud to introduce the No Cyber Cooperation with Russia Act with my friends Brendan Boyle and Ruben Gallego. I urge my colleagues across the aisle to join us in sending a clear message that Congress will not stand for this proposal to undermine U.S. national security," Lieu said in a statement.

3 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Oh please! Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Are people actually falling for this shit? And you thought Trump was the bottom of the barrel? You poor souls!

    1. Re: Oh please! Really? by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 4, Informative

      On the one hand: France (oldest ally), the UK (special relationship), and Canada (friend with benefits), all democracies and members of NATO.

      On the other hand: Russia, a major geopolitical adversary for most of the last century, a kleptocratic dictatorship run by an ex-KGB lieutenant who fiercely and violently crushes any non-token political opposition.

      Can't see why we'd favor one over the other.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
  2. Re:I see a problem with this? by guises · · Score: 3, Informative

    Probably not. This is a law with three goals: preventing Trump from doing something specific, calling attention to the fact that Trump wanted to do this, and perhaps creating a law for Trump to break (and thus be more easily removed from office). In other words, this is all about Trump and will likely be written so as to effect the rest of us not at all.