White House, industry to push Congress on computer security

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By Juliana Gruenwald
National Journal's Technology Daily

The Clinton administration and industry officials will push Congress
this fall to provide more funding for protection of computer security
initiatives, saying current legislation falls short of providing the
necessary resources.

The issue was among the concerns raised at the second meeting last
month of the Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security (PCIS),
an industry-led effort aimed at encouraging
better cooperation across the key critical infrastructure industry
sectors.

In an interview, John Tritak, director of the Critical Infrastructure
Assurance Office (CIAO), and Commerce Undersecretary for Export
Administration William Reinsch, whose agency oversees CIAO, pointed
to several problems beyond just the funding in the House and Senate
versions of the                                   Commerce, Justice
and State departments' spending bills.

"We're very disappointed," Reinsch said. "The House bill essentially
under funds everyone. ... The Senate bill is more particular ... They
zeroed out most of the new initiatives."

Both Tritak and Reinsch said Senate appropriators appear to be taking
a narrow view of infrastructure protection generally focused only on
the national security agencies' role in the issue.
                The President's approach, however, has been to "try to
tap into competencies of the different agencies" across the federal
government, Tritak said.

A spokesman for Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., who chairs the Senate
Appropriations Committee's commerce panel, did not have an immediate
response.

Officials expressed concern that the Senate bill provides little
funding for the Commerce Department's role in infrastructure
protection, citing in particular the lack of funding for initiatives
                        such as creation of the Institute for
Information Infrastructure Protection at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology. In a committee report on the bill, Senate
appropriators said the institute has been not properly coordinated.

Reinsch said he is confident the administration will fight to boost
funding for critical infrastructure funding during negotiations over
fiscal 2001 spending legislation this fall.

"I talked to OMB about this," Reinsch said. "This is a presidential
priority. They are prepared to press very hard on this."

At the recent PCIS meeting in San Francisco, industry representatives
outlined a half dozen priorities, according to Steve Jordan, the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce's director of special programs for international
economic and national security affairs.

Among their top priorities for the fall will be persuading Congress
to increase funding for CIAO, which was funded far below the
administration's request in the House bill, and other infrastructure
protection measures, Jordan said. Industry also is concerned about
the future of CIAO, which was established to
work with federal agencies to identify their dependence on critical
infrastructures and is set to sunset next year.

The group also will focus on trying to gain passage of legislation,
H.R. 4246, that would provide industry with a limited exemption from
the Freedom of Information Act to encourage them to share information
about cyber security with the federal government.



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