New Bill Would Unite Business And Gov In Cybersecurity Fight
By Lisa Kellman
In a press conference Wednesday, the top Republican and Democrat on the House intelligence Committee introduced legislation that would help the private sector prepare themselves against cyber attacks.
“The threat is imminent. The threat can occur tomorrow,” warned Rep. C.A “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-Md.), the committee’s ranking member. “Some of our key people predict and I feel this way too … we will have a catastrophic attack within the next year.”
The duo presented an 11 page cybersecurity bill that would unite the private and federal sectors to fight cyber attacks and protect intellectual property. The bill would allow the federal government to “share classified cyber threat information with approved American companies.”
“We have classified information that would be very beneficial on possible threats to networks that under current law and under the current arrangement cannot be shared with the private sector,” said Rogers.
The legislation would also make it easier for the private sector to voluntarily share cyber threat information with the U.S. government.
Rogers emphasized the urgency of the bill, noting that countries like Russia and China have spent billions of dollars to create technology for cyber attacks and “cyber economic espionage” which, can cost the economy up to $1 trillion each year. According to Rogers, companies can and have lost millions of dollars from these attacks and one company in particular lost as many as 20,000 manufacturing jobs.
The Chairman reported that many agencies have been approached as well as the White House and none have opposed the plan.
House GOP'ers Say Gov't Health Care Not The Cure
A government run health care plan will increase cancer mortality rates, said a group of GOP congressmen on Tuesday.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who survived bladder cancer after being diagnosed at age 19, said that the higher cancer mortality rates in the UK and Canada have shown him that a government run health care system will decrease cancer survival rates.
"We have a unique advantage as cancer survivors, that we can go through the bill and debate the bill knowing the personal consequences of what they are proposing would do to somebody just like us," he said. "We know for a fact that our survivability rates are going down."
Rogers warned Americans who have had cancer or are currently undergoing treatment to be wary of the current health care bill.
"85% of Americans have health insurance of some sort. What they are talking about doing is taking that away from you in order to fix 15% of the problem, and in order to do it we will have to ration health care for individuals," Rogers said. "There is no compassion in that, there is to extra treatment in that."
The congressmen spoke alongside a chart which depicted cancer survival rates in countries with government run health care plans versus the United States. Rep. Todd Atkin (R-Mo.) said that the statistics on prostate cancer speak for themselves.
"Among men between the UK and the US, we are talking about an 18% difference in survival rates. When its your life, 18% means an awful lot to you" Atkin said. "When the government takes over the health care system that's the kind of results you get."
Atkin added that he fully expects cancer patients to oppose the legislation.
Said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a survivor of renal and prostate cancer, "If you want a system where your chances of surviving renal cancer are less that even....a government system, all throughout Europe, produces those lower survivor rates for cancer"
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) said that better survival rates in the U.S. can be attributed to the speed at which diagnostic tests can be performed within the current system.
"Under a government health care plan like in the UK and Canada, I would not have had the advantage to get [diagnostic tests] done in such quick time. And it might have been too late."
"We need to focus on those good constructive policies that we all know are going to work, and continue to deliver the best health system in the world," Myrick said. "We don't need to create one that will limit people's choices and ability to go see their doctor."