by Chris Bronk | 29 Jun 2010.  World Politics Review

Since late last year, members of the U.S. Congress have introduced no less than 34 different bills dealing with information security and Internet policy. Many of these bills are well-meaning, such as the House resolution calling upon Vietnam to "release imprisoned bloggers and respect Internet freedom" -- even if the bill applies no penalties and, more importantly, appropriates no money.

But the more significant "cyber" bills are the ones dealing with the security of the Internet. Since April 1, 2008, when Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe introduced a particularly mammoth piece of cyber legislation, Congress has worked diligently in an effort to do something -- anything, really -- about hardening the nation's cyber-infrastructure.

Among the challenges they face is that it remains difficult to realistically prioritize when it comes to cyber vulnerabilities. The threats are definitely out there.

But none of the most recent national catastrophes -- from Sept. 11 to Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 financial meltdown and the Gulf oil spill -- have been the work of a nefarious hacker gang. For now, at least, cyber threats remain largely the realm of worst-case scenarios.

This has not prevented legislators from identifying our very real cyber-security vulnerabilities as the next great catastrophe.

Take the most recent cyber-security bill introduced in early June by Sen. Joe Lieberman and co-sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins and Tom Carper. The bill calls for the establishment of a cyberspace policy office in the White House and a national cyber-security center. Neither of these are bad ideas. Thinking seriously about information policy, both at the national and international level, is important. Furthermore, having a civilian and, as importantly, non-DOD entity coordinating and contributing on information-security matters is desirable. We don't want the flow chart for network attack response always leading back to the Defense Department.  READ FULL STORY...