John McCain Makes My Brain Have Pain

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/cybersecurity-act-of-2012/

John McCain, who has admitted to the media that he is "illiterate" when it comes to the Internet and computers, once again thinks he can regulate... the Internet? How does this make any sense? Does Joe Camel regulate the Food and Drug Administration? No. So why does John McCain think he can regulate the Internet? I don't know, but here are some more details on the story.

A little background on the legislation in question: a bill has been proposed in the senate that will attempt to address the urgent security problems facing the critical infrastructure of this country. This bill seemed liked it was going to pass; however, John McCain and seven other senators came out against the bill, and said that were going to come out with a new piece of legislation sometime within the next two weeks. According to McCain, the bill would be ineffective because it wouldn't grant authority to the U.S. Cybercommand and the National Security Agency. While this at first seems like a legitimate concern, one has to simply take a look at the piece of legislation actually in question to see why this concern is in fact illegitimate.

The bill in question does not grant authority to the U.S. Cybercommand or the National Security Agency, but it does grant authority to the Department of Homeland Security. Coincidentally, the most recent budget request for the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity efforts has been increased to $769 million. According to the article, "critical infrastructure entities would be allowed to determine how best to meet the standards based on the nature of their business sector, but they would be required to certify annually that they do meet them." To me, this just sounds like a compromise that will likely be better than the NSA having absolute control over infrastructure. This legislation likely will pass, and we will just have to wait and see how it works.