Cybersecurity Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, before I go into the closing business, let me say I had the pleasure of presiding in this body during the remarks that were just made by the distinguished chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, the distinguished ranking member of that committee, Senator Collins of Maine, and the distinguished chairman of the Commerce Committee and, until recently, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia.

I simply want, briefly, to add my voice to theirs and echo the three points they emphasized: One, we absolutely must take action on cybersecurity; two, it is a genuine and undeniable matter of our American national security; and, three, we cannot claim to have done the job, we cannot claim to even have attempted the job seriously if we do not address the question of the critical infrastructure on which American life and our economy depend that is in private hands and, therefore, cannot be protected under the existing regime in place protecting our government and military networks. We have to solve that problem. Anything that does not solve that problem is a clear failure of our duty, as national security experts from Republican and Democratic administrations alike have very clearly explained.

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