The sixth Republican presidential debate nearly ended without any reference to cybersecurity issues, until former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made an 11th-hour interjection.
“There needs to be complete dialogue with the large technology companies,” Bush said, responding to a question of whether there was a policy solution to encrypted communications. “They understand that there’s a national security risk,” he added.
He immediately pivoted to the topic of cybersecurity legislation passed by Congress in December, a slight tangent from the issue of encryption.
“We ought to give them a little bit of liability relief so that they share data among themselves and share data with the federal government, so they’re not fearful of a lawsuit,” he said.
That legislation, the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, aimed to release companies from liability in the event they share information about their users in the wake of a cybersecurity threat.
More significantly, Bush suggested that the National Security Agency be granted authority to oversee civilian cybersecurity efforts. “We need to make sure we keep the country safe. This is the first priority,” he added. “We should put the NSA in charge of the civilian side of this as well. That expertise needs to spread all across the government, and there needs to be much more cooperation.”
Bush did not have an opportunity to describe that proposal in detail. Presently, the Department of Homeland Security is generally responsible for coordinating cybersecurity efforts with state and local governments and the private sector. The cybersecurity legislation Bush referenced, perhaps unwittingly, solidified DHS’ role as an information sharing “hub” between federal government and the private sector.
Keeping that information out of the hands of the NSA was, in fact, a sticking point for many of the legislation’s opponents, who contended that the surveillance powers it authorized were too expansive. Their concerns were mildly assuaged by the idea that DHS would filter surveillance data before passing it on to other agencies.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2580501
In the event that Bush fleshes out the details of his proposal in the days ahead, it is likely that skeptics of such surveillance are going to be particularly dismayed.
