I’d say that this is the worst idea I’ve seen come out of the Obama Administration and Congress, but the list is so long by this point:
The Rockefeller-Snowe measure would create the Office of the National Cybersecurity Adviser, whose leader would report directly to the president and would coordinate defense efforts across government agencies. It would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish “measurable and auditable cybersecurity standards” that would apply to private companies as well as the government. It also would require licensing and certification of cybersecurity professionals.
The proposal would also mandate an ongoing, quadrennial review of the nation’s cyberdefenses. “It’s not a problem that will ever be completely solved,” Rockefeller said. “You have to keep making higher walls.”
And the government knows less about making those walls than many in the industry do, and yet Obama is going to demand that I be certified with a license from the federal government? I’ll agree to that when Obama, and the politicians who are looking at passing this nonsense can explain to me how to harden a LAMP server with even a quarter of the understanding of the process.
Yes, there are a lot of folks out there running IT systems who don’t know what they are doing, and a lot of them work for Uncle Sam. There is no aspect of life in this nation that progressives like Obama don’t want to control.
Hat Tip to Volokh.
