New Details on the National Cyber Security Initiative
Almost everything about the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative (CNCI), established by National Security Presidential Directive 54 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23, is classified.
But following a classified March 2008 hearing on the subject, Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee teased out a few unclassified details about the effort.
“The response (pdf) includes information on the National Cyber Security Center, how privacy will be protected under the CNCI, how success of the initiative will be measured, and how the Department views the private sector’s role in the initiative,” the Senators noted in a news release. “The Department chose to redact information relating to contracting at the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD). The senators have asked DHS explain their reasons for the redactions.”
See also “DHS stays mum on new ‘Cyber Security’ center” by Stephanie Condon, CNET News, July 31.
And see, relatedly, the record of a May 21, 2008 hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee on “Implications of Cyber Vulnerabilities on the Resilience and Security of the Electric Grid” (pdf).
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.
FAS is launching the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) to build a new, transpartisan vision of government that works – that has the capacity to achieve ambitious goals while adeptly responding to people’s basic needs.
This runs counter to public opinion: 4 in 5 of all Americans, across party lines, want to see the government take stronger climate action.