The White House's threat to veto the information sharing bill passed by the House last month (HR 3523) appears to have further muddied the waters, as the administration said that bill would infringe on the public's privacy and give companies too much shelter from liability in the event of an attack. Now, many of the same groups that opposed the House bill have raised similar concerns about the Senate bill favored by Democrats (S 2105). The White House's attempt to appease the online voting bloc may have dealt a severe blow to one of its pet causes; the bill's sponsors are negotiating with privacy groups and other Democrats to resolve the concerns, but opponents have questioned the basic need for cybersecurity legislation and are unlikely to be easily appeased.
Two case studies on the opposition from industry and privacy groups are instructive to how this debate has played out, and demonstrate the difficulty of sating the various interests involved in any broad tech policy issue. We noted the Senate cybersecurity bill now lacks any strong champions off the Hill, with even cybersecurity experts less than pleased with the gutting of the bill's regulatory provisions. The road seems clear for Democrats now: push forward with critical infrastructure regulations and risk either inaction on legislation or the ire of industry, or admit defeat and negotiate the addition of privacy protections to the information-sharing measure passed by the House. The latter might be tough to swallow for cybersecurity hawks like the retiring Senate Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., but it appears the only path toward enacting new laws this year.
Data Mining Efforts Limited by Personnel: The flood of new data being generated everyday by government systems could be harnessed to make the agencies more efficient, but there aren't enough skilled workers to analyze it, according to a report from CQ Weekly's Shawn Zeller. The Obama administration recently launched a $200 million initiative to boost the government's ability to mine and make use of its hoards of data, but experts warn the country needs more skilled data analysts to meet rising demand in the field. A 2011 report from the McKinsey Consulting firm found the U.S. needs between 140,000 and 190,000 more data engineers, along with another 1.5 million data managers. The potential loss of productivity due to the shortage of qualified personnel echoes cybersecurity, where the government faces similar difficulties competing with the private sector for qualified candidates. Data mining is shaping up to be the next wave in enterprise computing, meaning the government will have to move more quickly or risk being left behind by the tech industry once again. Facebook Hosts Privacy Chat Today: Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan will take part in a live chat at noon today to answer questions about changes to the social networking giant's data use policy. How Facebook uses consumers' personal data has drawn increased scrutiny ahead of the company's initial public offering this week, as investors project future sources of revenue to justify a valuation that could be as high as $100 billion. The prospect of new privacy regulations was listed as a potential risk in the company's regulatory filings, since such a law would likely include limits on how consumer data can be used by Web companies. Facebook also is bound by the terms of a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that bans the site from misrepresenting its privacy policies to users. Senator Wants More Skilled-Worked Visas: CQ's Alan K. Ota reports that Texas Republican John Cornyn plans to unveil legislation this week that would draw on several bipartisan measures to meet the growing demand for skilled foreign workers and entrepreneurs, particularly in the tech sector. Possible options include granting permanent resident status to up to 50,000 foreign students with graduates degrees from U.S. universities in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM), conditional visas for entrepreneurs with capital to start a business, and terminating the visa lottery program. Tech firms have consistently maintained that the U.S. doesn't produce the number or quality of engineers needed to fill job openings in Silicon Valley. But any expansion of immigration is difficult with unemployment still hovering at 8 percent and many U.S. graduates sitting at home, unable to find jobs. Opponents of the visas argue tech firms are simply looking for a discount on foreign engineering talent, rather than competing with Wall Street and other sectors to meet the price for domestic techies. Lawmakers Want Action on Rare Earth: CQ's Lauren Gardner reports that lawmakers looking to address the nation's dependence on China for "rare earth" minerals critical to defense technologies are getting mixed messages from two different government bodies. A Pentagon report downplayed the country's reliance on China for the elements, which are crucial to manufacturing disk drives, weapons systems and electronic devices. But a Congressional Research Service report questions how China would react if the World Trade Organization rules against its protectionist practices. Several bills are currently pending that would direct federal agencies to develop alternative domestic sources for the minerals.