No amount of death-and-destruction talk about the prospects of cyberattacks on the nation's nuclear power plants and water systems could override the intense partisanship on Capitol Hill.
The cybersecurity bill, already heavily rewritten to reflect opposition from industry groups and their political allies, died in the Senate on Thursday. It was unable to muster enough support in a procedural cloture vote.
The bill reflects a confluence of concerns over civil liberties and national security, not to mention the difficulty of forging any agreement during an election year.
The bill was introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine. It was originally intended to allow the government to enforce minimum security standards for the computer systems that govern critical infrastructure systems. But industry opposition compelled the backers of the bill to make it voluntary.
What survived was largely a measure to allow private companies and government agencies to share information about cybersecurity threats. Responding to civil libertarians' worries about the military snooping on private communications, the Obama administration took pains to let the Department of Homeland Security be the main government node, rather than the National Security Agency. Administration officials expended a great deal of political energy trying to get the bill through the Senate. In the end, dozens of amendments were attached to it, and it failed to attract the 60 votes needed to get through cloture.
It is likely to come up again in the fall, though few
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cybersecurity-bill-dies-under-weight-190804308.html?l=1
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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