Obama and OPM Blasted as Hypocrites Over Cyber Security Breaches

Press Release

One day after National Security Agency (NSA) Director Adm. Mike Rogers declined to blame the Chinese for the recent hacking fiasco against the U.S. government at an intelligence conference, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called China "the leading suspect," according to Defense News on Saturday. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under President Barack Obama is being lambasted for its failure to protect its databases from suspected Chinese espionage hackers. The cyber attack's severity is still being accessed but there's agreement that it was one of the worst security breaches in U.S. history. OPM repeatedly neglected to implement basic cyber security protections, according to lawmakers.

One lawmaker, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, noted that the Obama administration's handling of the recent cyber data breach exposed the administration's hypocrisy and dishonesty in the handling of cyber terrorism, espionage or crime. And yet not one member of the administration has been fired, suspended or even reprimanded for the security breaches at various government agencies.

The Texas congressman has written in a statement that the Obama administration penalizes private companies for their security breaches, forcing them to pay heavy fines. The Justice Department under former Attorney General Eric Holder and now Attorney General Loretta Lynch has increased their department's resources devoted to discovering industrial espionage and assessing the security programs at companies that were "hit by hackers." Yet, nothing is done when a federal agency is attacked by cyber criminals or terrorists.

"If federal agencies wish to provide effective oversight of the private sector, then they should start by looking in the mirror," Hurd said. U.S. government agencies have failed to take basic steps to protect its data from hackers and thieves for years. The Obama administration's failures are risking everything from nuclear weapons secrets to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) information on tens of millions of Americans citizens.

As bad as those agencies were hit by cyber criminals and spies, the Treasury, Transportation, State Departments records are the worst when it come to vulnerability, according to the most recent report from the White House. Each of those agencies has been hacked in the last few years.

The White House has come under considerable fire from GOP lawmakers in both houses of the U.S. Congress following the disclosure that two separate digital intrusions at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have exposed the most sensitive information of tens of millions of Americans. "We the American people spent almost $80 billion on information technology, and it stinks," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "It doesn't work."

Rep. Hurd also sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and he participated in two hearings about the OPM security breach. In his first term as a congressman, Hurd also chairs the Oversight Committee's Information Technology panel. His four-years of experience as a senior adviser for the international security firm FusionX is one of the reasons why Hurd, a House freshman, now has the chairmanship of the subcommittee.

Hurd and other lawmakers accused President Barack Obama's so-called national security team -- including Valerie Jarrett and Susan Rice -- and other government officials of covering up information on the severity of the security breaches as well as failing to respond to years of warnings that the OPM -- which stores personnel files and security clearance background check reports on all federal workers -- were not properly secured.

"In report after report going back to 2010, the OPM's Office of the Inspector General had identified insecure, outdated and poorly managed IT systems and practices that left the agency's information vulnerable," Hurd wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "Yet during multiple congressional hearings the past two weeks, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta declined to apologize for, or even acknowledge, her agency's refusal to implement security best practices recommended for several years by the OPM's own inspector general," he stated.

Lawmakers slammed Archuleta's failure to shut down more than 10 computer systems that did not possess security certificates which had been recommended by the OPM's inspector general. Director Archuleta offered the defense that her agency could not turn shutdown its systems due to the potential for disruption employee's paychecks or benefits.

The OPM director's testimony did not satisfied the lawmakers or the OPM's own inspector general. A number of people inside and outside of government believe Archuleta should be terminated from employment based on her actions -- or inactions -- in her department's security breach.

Hurd discussed his interaction with the head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) when he asked whether "he could recall ever seeing any federal government employee fired for delays or cost overruns on IT projects. After a long pause, [the head of the GAO] could not name a single instance," Hurd continued. "This "do as I say, not as I do' culture runs rampant in Washington. Our government demands accountability from others but offers little itself."

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