The Senate's inability to advance cybersecurity legislation on Wednesday means all eyes are now on the White House, which previously threatened to implement much of the bill (S 3414) via executive order if Congress failed to pass new cybersecurity laws. The administration has been careful to leave itself some wiggle room by maintaining that President Obama himself has yet to review the order or make a final decision on it, but a draft has been circulating on the Hill for weeks. That draft would establish a voluntary security regime for critical infrastructure providers in return for incentives such as information on potential threats. But industry and Republicans have balked, arguing that even voluntary security rules would open the door to federal cybersecurity regulations down the road. If the White House does decide to proceed with the executive order, it will be a decision driven by military and national security experts. There is almost no political payoff for passing a bill and plenty of potential resistance, barring a catastrophic cyberattack that changes the equation in the near future.

Meanwhile, supporters of the Senate cybersecurity bill are blaming the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for killing the legislation's chance at passage. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., were among those citing the chamber's opposition as the key factor in blocking the legislation, while Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said the chamber refused to work with Senate negotiators. Senate Homeland Security chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., noted that while the liability protections in the bill fell short of the chamber's wishes, an executive order would contain none.

Quotable: “Our country is vulnerable to a cyberattack. Terrorists bent on harming the United States could devastate our power grid, our banking system, or our nuclear plants. Cybersecurity is one of the top concerns for the Pentagon. Sadly, Republicans chose to appease special interests instead of protecting our national security. My Republican colleagues recently wrote that ‘only the legislative process can create the durable and collaborative public-private partnership we need to enhance cybersecurity,’ but those proved to be just words on a piece of paper. Today, these same Republicans sank the best legislative solution to this urgent problem. Given Republican intransigence, I hope President Obama uses all the authority of the executive branch at his disposal to fully protect our nation from the cybersecurity threat. Republicans today showed we cannot count on them to take this threat seriously.” — Sen. Reid Report: Obama Signs Secret Cyber Directive: President Obama signed a secret directive that attempts to establish guidelines for offensive and defensive cyber-operations in mid-October, according to a report from The Washington Post. The directive reportedly explicitly makes a distinction between network defense and cyber-operations for the first time, with the latter referring to operations taking place outside U.S. networks. The directive is an attempt to settle years of dispute over when and who in the government is empowered to act to prevent a cyberattack. The Pentagon is also working on guidelines for when the military can act to prevent a potentially catastrophic cyberattack, and under what scenarios offensive cyber-operations are justified. Such offensive actions, like the Stuxnet virus developed jointly by the U.S. and Israel, would generally require White House permission. Video Privacy Bill Markup on Nov. 29: A spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told CQ that the panel will mark up a bill (HR 2471) on Nov. 29 that would make it legal for companies to share consumers' video viewing history via social media. The online video service Netflix has lobbied heavily for the changes to the Video Privacy Protection Act, which would allow consumers to share their rental histories with friends via sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Privacy advocates oppose the changes, citing the VPPA as one of the most effective privacy laws on the books. The law currently requires affirmative consent for every time a company wants to share a customer's rental history. Worth a Read: GAO Report on Spectrum Sharing (PDF) Lawmakers Speak Out Against Dubai Power Grab, Again: The co-chairmen of the Congressional Internet Caucus wrote (PDF) to the Department of State this week ahead of the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai next month. The lawmakers once again voiced unified opposition to any attempt by the United Nations' telecom body to assume greater control of the Internet, as some nations have called for. U.S. officials are convinced that such a change would lead to censorship and restrict innovation, particularly with countries like China pushing for greater government control of the Web. Both chambers of Congress have expressed support for the current, multistakeholder model of Internet governance, which relies on a pool of nonprofits to manage the Web. FCC: Few Minorities and Women Own TV Stations: Minorities and women are still underrepresented as the owners of TV stations and haven't made much progress in recent years, according to the FCC's latest report on diversity of ownership. According to a report from Broadcasting and Cable, women had an attributable interest in only 6.8 percent of full-power TV stations, up from 5.6 percent in 2009. Racial minorities owned only about 1.5 percent of full-power stations, with African-Americans owning 12 of those 30 stations. Hispanics, who are broken out under the ethnicity category, saw their ownership climb to 2.9 percent of total stations. Regardless, it is clear that efforts to encourage diversity of media ownership have had mixed success at best. With women and minorities powering President Obama to a second term, the FCC could be ground zero for his efforts to reach out to those communities.