Anyone who uses e-mail, the Internet or credit cards should be concerned about cyber-security, but Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says new legislation in Congress would be a step backward in keeping our accounts safe. Grassley, a Republican, says a cyber-security bill that’s backed by the Obama administration was introduced in the Senate last week and it appears to be on the fast track toward approval.
“The proposal is seriously flawed,” Grassley says. “It’s kind of heavy-handed on the part of the federal government and I think it’s unnecessarily costly. Ironically, it would likely slow down the ability of the United States to respond to these cyber threats.”
Grassley says the proposed legislation is an expansion of government bureaucracy that will slow our response to cyber-threats and may even make the nation more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. He says he’s joined a small group of senators who are working to create an alternative bill.
“Our approach focuses on getting government and private sector working together, rather than having government drive everything,” Grassley says. “We want to encourage free flow of information between network managers. We want to encourage investment and innovation and cyber-security.”
He says the alternative legislation aims to address cyber-security threats “without the overreaching hand of the government.” Grassley says the focus should be on reforming existing federal government agencies, streamlining regulation and looking for efficiencies that will strengthen the country’s capacity to deal with cyber-attacks.