A senator has opened the door to using a subpoena to get answers from a key national security agency about the breach of the Office of Personnel Management.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent a letter to the National Counterintelligence and Security Center on Aug. 12 asking the agency whether it had identified U.S. security clearances as a potential target for foreign intelligence and if it had informed the OPM of that fact. He also asked whether there was a reason for the OPM to retain security clearance information as far back as 1985.
“This is, to me, the kind of matter that the National Counterintelligence and Security Center should respond to quickly, because it affects a debate coming up,” Wyden said in an interview with the DailyDot on Monday.
He was referring to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act being considered in the Senate. The legislation would free companies from liability for sharing customer information with the federal government. Proponents say it is a needed cybersecurity measure, while opponents, including Wyden, suggest that it wouldn’t prevent attacks on agencies such as the OPM.
It was revealed this year that the OPM had 21.5 million classified personnel files stolen in a cybersecurity breach reportedly traced back to China.
“We’re going to have a debate on [CISA] in a matter of weeks, which is why I thought it was important the NCSC put this up at the top of the inbox and respond to it,” Wyden said. In response to whether he would ask Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee to issue a subpoena, Wyden continued, “I’m certainly going to talk to colleagues about this. I think we ought to be spending more time on this, trying to get answers to what happened.”
Wyden mentioned a 2007 inspector general’s report that found security flaws in OPM’s system management practices and noted that he wanted to know whether the NCSC had ever reaffirmed the OIG report’s findings in its advice to the OPM.
“It seems to me that, if you’re going to get this right, you’d better learn from mistakes when you’re trying to move forward,” Wyden said. “And right now, we can’t even get the key intelligence agency to respond in writing to what they did given the inspector general’s report of 2007,” he added.
