Senate Could Consideration of Cyber Next Week
In discussions with other Senators, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has continued to voice his intention to bring cybersecurity legislation to the floor next week. While no official announcement has been made publicly by Reid, reports by several Senate leaders are that the decision has been made to move forward with the process, even while consensus hasn’t yet been reached on several key issues and final language remains to be even set, not to mention shared broadly.
That is, discussions are still ongoing regarding the compromise critical infrastructure provisions that Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) have been crafting, and revised drafts of provisions regarding information sharing are still in play, along with a wide range of possible amendments, including but not limited to a proposal regarding data security and breach notification. It is clear, however, that if the Senate does move forward with a debate on the issue, it will be much broader than the narrow provisions that passed the House earlier this year.
Of course, this isn’t the first time that Reid has sought to bring Cyber security to the floor, so if sufficient support doesn’t materialize, it’s still possible that the Senate adjourns for August recess having not moved forward on this critical issues.
DOC to Publish Outcomes from Privacy Multistakeholder, Encourages Side Discussions
The first privacy multistakeholder meeting held by the NTIA last Thursday included participation from more than 200 representatives from industry and the consumer privacy community and consisted of two parts: (1) collecting recommendations from the diverse audience, and (2) trying to prioritize a set of topics worthy of initial focus. But consistent with most practical expectations, a meeting of this size and type did not produce substantial consensus or direction.
Specifically, the meeting did not achieve significant progress on such key issues as how consensus would ultimately be measured or whether and how to structure working groups and on which topics. At the end of the meeting, NTIA staff reiterated their intention to serve only as a convener in the process, but did also commit to releasing written output this week that reflect the consensus priority items reached at the meeting. NTIA staff also indicated that the next meeting will be held in August, likely around the middle of the month, and they encouraged all interested parties to meet with allies and in ‘cross-cutting groups to develop constructive proposals.
SIIA remains committed to working within this process to develop a voluntary industry code of conduct for mobile app transparency as an alternative to a legislative or regulatory approach, and we’ll continue to provide updates and engage members for input.
GAO Report Concurs with SIIA Recommendations for Federal Cloud Adoption
Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report highlighting seven key challenges that remain for federal agencies to effectively implement cloud computing. The list of challenges and recommendations track very closely with the recommendations made by SIIA in its whitepaper, Beyond the 25 Point Plan: A Roadmap to Implementing Cloud Computing and Reforming Federal IT, released last month in conjunction with the 18-month anniversary of the 25 Plan and NIST Cloud Workshop V. SIIA welcomed the new GAO report, citing it as an opportunity for federal IT leaders and leading IT companies can work together to comprehensively evolve the federal IT environment to catalyze government operations for the 21st Century. Read more.
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David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy. Follow the SIIA Public Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy