OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act

Floor Speech

Date: April 18, 2013
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Technology and Communication Criminal Justice

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of this amendment.

Enhancing our security in cyberspace is of the highest importance, but it cannot be done at the expense of our privacy and civil liberties. The key to ensuring the necessary protections are in place is codifying in statute a strong civilian lead for information sharing with the private sector. Our amendment does just that.

Yesterday, I reached an agreement with Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Ruppersberger, and Chairman McCaul to offer this bipartisan amendment to strengthen the bill. The amendment establishes a center within the Department of Homeland Security as the Federal hub for cyber threat information shared under this bill, and the Department of Justice as the hub for all cyber crime information.

With this amendment, citizens may take comfort knowing that their information will be more likely shared with the appropriate civilian agencies with the accompanying accountability and transparency; and businesses can be more sure that their dealings abroad will not be colored by the perception, fair or otherwise, that they are in cahoots with the National Security Agency.

To be clear, this amendment does not fix all of the privacy or liability issues with the underlying bill, but it does establish the strong precedent of civilian control of cyber information sharing; and I hope we can fix the broader issues with the bill, should it pass, further down the line.

This amendment is absolutely essential to the bill, and it sends the right message to the world about the way the United States will act in cyberspace.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Chair, at this point, I'd like to say that I agree with Democratic Leader Ms. Pelosi's issue with respect to cyber, particularly critical infrastructure. And I look forward to working with Chairman McCaul on submitting legislation.

With that, Mr. Chair, I encourage Members to support this bipartisan amendment that the chair of the Committee on Homeland Security and I drafted.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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