Gardner, Warner Form Senate Cybersecurity Caucus To Coordinate Policies
Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Mark Warner, D-Va., jointly formed the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus Tuesday in a bid to keep Senate colleagues and their staffs updated on cybersecurity policy issues. Gardner and Warner will co-chair the caucus, which Gardner said was the first body to coordinate Senate activity on cybersecurity issues. A separate House-centric Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus formed in 2008. Gardner said during an American Enterprise Institute policy briefing that the caucus would help lawmakers coordinate on cybersecurity policy issues across multiple Senate committees that share jurisdiction on cybersecurity, noting his long-standing desire to establish a separate select Senate cybersecurity committee. Gardner and Warner later demurred in interviews on whether the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus' work would include pushing for a full cybersecurity committee, but industry lobbyists told us they believe the caucus is likely to be a springboard toward more serious consideration of the idea.
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A Senate cybersecurity committee that includes the chairmen and ranking members of the committees with jurisdictional claims on cyber issues could help all members coordinate “all committees' actions and policies at the same time,” Gardner said during the AEI briefing. Such a committee could in part examine the U.S.' coordination with China and other nations on cybersecurity issues, he said. Gardner and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., have backed creation of a select cybersecurity committee to coordinate the Senate's legislative efforts, with Gardner first pushing the issue last year after the Office of Personnel Management data breach.
Gardner told us he isn't tying his interest in creating a cybersecurity committee to the formation of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus, saying he didn't want to speak on behalf of the rest of the caucus on the proposal or prejudice the caucus' eventual policy positions. “Right now we're just getting started in forming the vision of the caucus and any specific policies will flow from that,” he said. “The committee is something that I'm pushing because I think it reflects that we don't have a specific body that is looking at all of these challenges at the same time across the government.”
Warner told us he's “looking forward to talking to [Gardner] about” the proposal for a cybersecurity committee but said the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus' early focus will be on educating senators and their staffs on cybersecurity issues. “We're about the move into a world where all devices are going to be connected to the internet,” which will continue to raise the importance of cybersecurity as a policy issue in Congress, Warner said. Senators' cybersecurity policy knowledge is often siloed based on the issues that their specific committees care about, which makes holistic education on cyber issues an important first step for the caucus, he said.
Formation of the Senate Cybersecurity Caucus is clearly a “precursor” to a strong push for a Senate cybersecurity committee, said Shane Tews, visiting fellow at AEI’s Center for Internet, Communications and Technology Policy, in an interview. A caucus push in favor of a cybersecurity committee is likely because Gardner may be trying to soften the ground in favor of the proposal, said Bob Dix, Juniper Networks vice president-government affairs and critical infrastructure protection, in an interview. Gardner and other proponents of a cybersecurity committee have struggled to gain support for the idea among Senate leaders because “nobody wants to give up jurisdiction of cybersecurity at this point,” Dix said. “Whether it leads anywhere may depend on what the next presidential administration's cybersecurity priorities are.”
There's “certainly value to consolidating that jurisdiction,” Dix said. “The distribution of that jurisdiction has been an impediment to moving forward in some areas, so even coordinating policy goals across those committees has value.” Senate committees have examined cybersecurity policy issues “in little slivers rather than as a whole, and that's been a challenge,” Tews said. A select cybersecurity committee could pool all Senate experts and “could manage this from both a macro and micro perspective.”
AEI issued a strategic plan Tuesday in advance of the policy briefing outlining its internet policy goals for the next presidential administration, which AEI President Mike Daniels said during the briefing was necessary because “what we're doing now isn't working.” AEI's plan is for the private sector to “take the lead” on internet issues amid what it perceives as the federal government's inability to keep up on technology issues. “If entrepreneurs and innovators continue to define the future of the Internet, American interests and ideals will be well served,” AEI said.
The AEI plan wants the next administration to “give greater priority” to U.S. intelligence agencies' cyber threat information gathering and to strengthen existing government institutions' ability to combat cyber crime. AEI also said the next administration should check China on digital trade and IP theft issues, including clarifying the U.S.' willingness to prosecute parties engaged in cyberattacks and data breaches. The next administration should also “use all elements of U.S. diplomatic and economic policy” to discourage foreign governments' online censorship and to promote multistakeholder internet governance, AEI said in the plan.