Ryan Singel over at Wired.com spells out some of the mysterious activity on the part of the US government recently. Most disturbing to me is the attempt by the NSA to take over cyber surveillance on US citizens. Or rather continue their cyber surveillance of US citizens.
Senators Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) state in a letter to DHS Secretary Chertoff on Friday:
DHS has requested substantial new resources for cyber security, and it is critical that the funds are spent carefully and appropriately. The Department has requested an additional $83 million dollars for the National Cyber Security Division (NCSD) for fiscal year 2009. Including the $115 million that was awarded for the initiative in the FY 2008omnibus appropriations bill, this would be a nearly $200 million dollar increase, tripling the amount of money spent on cyber security in DHS since 2007.
I think that means that $300 million is being spent on cyber security within DHS. That is a lot of money. I wonder where it is going?
What is really perplexing is evidently DHS plans on spending $30 Billion on cyber security. Now that is a lot of money. Keep in mind that that is almost twice the annual market for all security products in the WORLD.
The senators go on to ask seventeen questions of Mr. Chertoff. Here is a good one:
For example, on March 20th, you announced that Rod Beckstrom would be the Director of the new National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) within DHS. Prior to this announcement, committee staff had been instructed that the existence of the NCSC itself was classified. Moreover, the Department has yet to publicly disclose very many details on the role of the NCSC beyond the brief press release. To clarify these matters, we renew our request for an unclassified summary of the CNCI – a request made by Committee staff over five months ago.
Pretty strange behavior to classify the existance of the Cyber Security Center, then announce its leader in a public press release.
There are lots more unanswered questions. I think it is important for Congress to realize that good security does not have to be secret. Just as good encryption algorithms are published and all “secret” methods of encryption are suspect, security measures must be transparent so that they can withstand the scrutiny of overseers and experts.
Allowing the DHS to keep its cyber security measures secret is a formula for disaster.
