Bush To Name Tech Security Leaders

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34171-2003Jan9.html

By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, January 9, 2003

The White House is planning to nominate a former intelligence agency
chairman and a high-ranking Commerce Department official to shape the
way information technology is used in the fight against terrorism,
according to government and technology industry sources.

The nominees will be key players in the new Department of Homeland
Security and would be profoundly influential on a range of technology
issues, including protecting the nation's online infrastructure,
directing the development of new surveillance and defense technologies
and preserving the privacy rights of ordinary citizens.

James Clapper, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
will be nominated to lead the department's Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) division. He would be responsible not
only for IT security, but also for getting often competing
intelligence agencies to pool their data. Inter-agency rivalries
contributed to a lack of awareness of terrorist activity that presaged
the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, according
to a number of studies after the fact.

Commerce Department official John Tritak will be tapped to run the
Infrastructure Protection division under Clapper, administration
sources said.

A spokesman for Clapper declined to comment. Tritak did not return
repeated telephone calls.

A retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, Clapper runs the National
Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which analyzes satellite photos and
makes military maps. He formerly served as vice president and director
of intelligence programs at SRA International, a Fairfax-based defense
contractor.

Clapper, who would report to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, is
an effective leader who can accomplish a great deal without letting
his ego get in the way, said former National Security Agency Deputy
Director Stewart Baker.

"He's the sort of guy they send in to rescue agencies when they're
struggling or in trouble, and he'll probably stay a few years setting
things up and then head off to a new fire," Baker said. "He doesn't
seem to be carrying any agenda other than to get the job done well."

One senior intelligence officer said Clapper faces a "monstrous" task.

"Everything else looks easy in comparison," he said. "Either part of
his bifurcated title is tough enough. Put them both together, and it's
mission impossible ... If it's not mission impossible, it's mission in
need of a miracle."

Tritak, regarded in the business community as a consensus-builder, is
seen as a shoe-in for the "Infrastructure Protection" section. He is
the director of the Commerce Department's Critical Infrastructure
Assurance Office (CIAO), which coordinates government and
private-sector efforts to protect important networks from physical and
cyber-based attacks.

A senior congressional source said high-ranking CIA officer Joan
Dempsey is a strong candidate for the Information Analysis division
under Clapper, but a source in the intelligence community said she is
not in the running. The head of the Information Analysis division
would be in charge of convincing rival spy agencies to share
information.

Collaboration among agencies is tough to achieve, said Kim Dougherty,
vice president of national security affairs at the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce.

"Each has this defensive posture and doesn't want to show or share all
their cards, and it's vital that you have someone who understands this
and can work through the various bureaucracies," Dougherty said.

One key technology post has already been filled at the department.  
Steven Cooper will serve as chief information officer, taking on
essentially the same role he had for the past year in the White House
Office of Homeland Security. Cooper will be responsible for
integrating disparate information technology systems from 24 agencies
that are moving into the new department. He previously served as
executive director of Strategic Information Delivery for Corning Inc.

The White House has not yet chosen an undersecretary of Science and
Technology, who would supervise the Homeland Security Advanced
Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), a division of the department with a
proposed $500 million budget. HSARPA will be modeled after the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a Defense Department
program that was instrumental in creating the framework of the
Internet in the 1960s.

The White House also will name a chief privacy officer for the
department, responding to comments from lawmakers, civil liberties
groups and the public that defending against terrorism should not
compromise privacy rights.

The administration is considering Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief counsel
at the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, sources said,
as well as Andy Purdy, an adviser on the president's cybersecurity
team.

O'Connor Kelly was deputy privacy officer at Internet banner ad giant
DoubleClick Inc. Purdy has been chief deputy general counsel at the
U.S. Sentencing Commission since 1989, and a staff member of the
Senate Ethics Committee.

Purdy said he is interested in the job, adding, "It is an important
and challenging position that is going to present a great opportunity
to whoever is appointed."

O'Connor Kelly did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Richard Clarke, the White House's cybersecurity point man since 1998,
will not join the department, but will remain chairman of the
President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, according to one
administration official and several technology lobbyists with close
ties to the administration's cybersecurity program. The board plans to
release a national cybersecurity strategy later this month or in early
February.

All of the undersecretary and assistant secretary nominees must be
confirmed by the U.S. Senate, though it remains unclear which
committees will review them and when.

The department is expected to be operational by Jan. 24, and already
is scouting three possible locations in Fairfax County, the Washington
Post reported Wednesday.



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