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Tag: Mike Rogers

  • Obama To Nominate Vice Admiral Mike Rogers To Head Up The NSA

    Back in October, it was announced that Gen. Keith Alexander would be stepping down as head of the NSA. While it was presumed his resignation was caused by the Snowden leaks, the government maintains that his resignation has been a long time coming. Either way, a replacement is on the way.

    The Hill reports that Obama is close to announcing Vice Admiral Mike Rogers as his choice to head up the NSA once Alexander resigns. Rogers, who ironically shares the same name as House Intelligence Committee Chairman and CISPA author Mike Rogers, is currently in charge of Cyber Command for the Navy.

    According to his biography, Rogers has been doing cryptology for the Navy since 1986. He became the head of Cyber Command for the Navy in 2011. His extensive experience in the field makes him a logical choice for the position according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

    What about his civil liberties record? After all, one of the main complaints regarding Alexander is that he ignored many potential civil liberties violations in favor of fulfilling his dream of being a starship captain. As for Rogers, Hagel says that he has “the wisdom to help balance the demands of security, privacy and liberty in our digital age.”

    While we can’t say for sure how Rogers will perform, we can at least remain cautiously optimistic. After all, Rogers could bring a fresh face to the NSA that pushes for transparency and less intrusive surveillance methods. While it’s certainly not likely to happen, one can at least dream, right?

    Obama still hasn’t made the official announcement, but it will probably be made soon so Rogers can be put through the nomination process. This will be especially important for us as the Senate will no doubt be grilling him on all the issues currently facing the NSA and its surveillance programs. It will give us a good idea on where Rogers stands on these issues and if he will be better or worse than Alexander.

    Image via Navy.mil

  • Rep. Mike Rogers Is Not Giving Up On CISPA

    Rep. Mike Rogers Is Not Giving Up On CISPA

    Back in April, the House once again passed CISPA – a controversial cybersecurity bill that would allow the government to share information with private companies and vice versa. At the time, opponents said it didn’t have enough privacy safeguards to prevent the NSA from nabbing subscriber data, but recent revelations regarding the agency have already shown such actions to be taking place. Since then, CISPA has been all but forgotten, but one of its biggest proponents isn’t going to let it die.

    House Intelligence Chairman and NSA defender Mike Rogers recently spoke at a panel discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The topic of CISPA and how it’s fairing in light of the recent NSA leaks obviously came up. Instead of painting a picture of doom and gloom for his legislation, Rogers simply said that CISPA is “a little ill.” He’s confident, however, that the bill is “not dead yet.”

    That’s certainly one way to put it, but CISPA is pretty much dead. The Senate, despite Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein’s best efforts, has pretty much dropped the legislation, and is instead working on its own cybersecurity legislation. The new bill, being drafted by Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, wouldn’t allow the government and companies to share data. Instead, it would set up voluntary standards and best practices that power plants and other critical infrastructure would be encouraged to follow.

    Despite this, Rogers is still confident that Feinstein, his counterpart in the Senate, will succeed in crafting a Senate version of CISPA. He’s also working to rewrite some parts of his own bill to address some of the concerns that privacy proponents have brought forward in light of the NSA leaks.

    Of course, any improvements from Rogers or Feinstein should be taken with a grain of salt as both are staunch defenders of the NSA. Feinstein, in particular, has said she would introduce legislation that would make the NSA more transparent, but would otherwise leave the agency’s many controversial surveillance programs, including its bulk collection of Americans’ cellphone metadata, fully intact.

    In short, the same people who say the NSA has done nothing wrong are moving ahead with legislation that would fully legalize the act of private companies handing over your data to the NSA all in the name of cybersecurity. After all, hackers and terrorists are apparently the most dangerous threat facing this country – not an incompetent Congress.

    [Image: Mike Rogers/Facebook]
    [h/t: The Hill]

  • CISPA Is Looking Better, But Privacy Proponents Still Aren’t Satisfied

    Rep. Adam Schiff announced on Friday that he would be introducing a pro-privacy amendment to CISPA that would force companies to remove any identifiable information from data it shares with the government. Surprisingly enough, the bill’s authors seem to be taking this amendment, and other pro-privacy amendments, seriously.

    The Hill reports that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger will be adding a number of amendments to CISPA during its markup this week. Rogers insists that CISPA is “not a surveillance bill” and the proposed amendments will reportedly clear up any misconceptions people have about it.

    So, what kind of misconceptions will these amendments clear up? The first would strictly limit what government agencies could use the collected information for. Opponents suggest the current CISPA would allow government agencies to use collected information for non-national security purposes. The amendment would make it clear that any information collected under CISPA must be used only for national security purposes.

    Another amendment would make sure companies are held to the same standard as government agencies. In other words, it would require companies to use any information they receive from government agencies for cybersecurity purposes only.

    One of the more interesting amendments would forbid companies from launching retaliatory attacks against those who launch attacks against them. It’s not exactly a pro-privacy amendment, but it would help keep trigger happy companies under check while the authorities investigate cyberattacks.

    Privacy proponents are obviously happy to see CISPA being improved, but they still have one major issue with the bill. They feel that any information obtained by the government should be sent to a civilian agency, like the Department of Homeland Security. The current bill isn’t exactly clear on which agency companies would share information with, but one interpretation sees CISPA allowing companies to share information directly with NSA, a spy agency with little governmental oversight.

    The currently proposed amendments don’t address all the problems, but it shows that the House Intelligence Committee is at least wanting to address some of the problems privacy proponents have with CISPA. That’s more than what the committee did last year as it passed CISPA without even allowing arguments for proposed amendments to be heard.

  • Should You Be Concerned About The Return Of CISPA?

    On Wednesday of last week, we heard that the House Intelligence Committee was going to reintroduce CISPA after working with the White House on a revised bill that sufficiently addressed the Obama administration’s concerns. The hope of a reworked, and potentially privacy friendly, CISPA was good while it lasted because the bill’s co-sponsors aren’t going to change a thing.

    The Hill reports that House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers and ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger said that they will be reintroducing CISPA into the House. This new CISPA, however, will not be any different from the old one.

    Were you concerned about CISPA last year? Do you hate to see it back? Let us know in the comments.

    It’s been a while since the original CISPA was introduced though. What made this particular piece of legislation so bad again? The EFF released a statement when CISPA was a concern last year, and the group’s words are still applicable to this day:

    CISPA creates an exception to all privacy laws to permit companies to share our information with each other and with the government in the name of cybersecurity. Although a carefully-crafted information sharing program that strictly limits the information to be shared and includes robust privacy safeguards could be an effective approach to cybersecurity, CISPA lacks such protections for individual rights. CISPA’s ‘information sharing’ regime allows the transfer of vast amounts of data, including sensitive information like internet use history or the content of emails, to any agency in the government including military and intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency or the Department of Defense Cyber Command. Once in government hands, this information can be used for any nonregulatory purpose so long as one significant purpose is for cybersecurity or to protect national security. These are not meaningful use restrictions: “national security” use is one of the problems, and the White House recognized this immense problem by precluding such use in its own cybersecurity proposal. While the bill requires the Director of National Intelligence Inspector General to issue annual reports on the government’s use of information shared with it under the bill, such reports would only be provided to congressional intelligence committees, and IG reports are no substitute for meaningful use restrictions and they will do nothing to dissuade companies from misusing personal information shared under this broad new program.

    Despite this, CISPA enjoyed broad support from pretty much every major Internet-based company, with the exception of Mozilla. The same companies that came out swinging against SOPA voiced their support for CISPA. It’s pretty obvious that they supported it because it exonerates all companies from any liability should a customer’s data fall in the wrong hands when being transferred to the government, but the Telecommunications Industry Association argued last year that CISPA protected consumers:

    CISPA strikes the right balance between strong cyber protection and a flexible, innovation-friendly framework. The legislation takes a significant step forward in safeguarding consumers and businesses from increasingly aggressive and sophisticated cyber attacks. At the same time, it establishes a collaborative approach that won’t introduce heavy bureaucracy that could harm high tech innovation. The relationship between government and industry that this bill supports is critical to the current and future economic success and security of America.

    Is the TIA right in that CISPA helps protect consumers and companies? Or does it only serve to hurt them? Let us know in the comments.

    The old CISPA may have enjoyed broad support from Internet companies, but it lacked a very important ally – the President. Last year, the White House issued a statement threatening to veto CISPA for its lack of privacy protections. It was a good sign, but that may not the be the case the time around.

    In a statement released on Monday, the House Intelligence Committee says that CISPA was “developed in close consultation with a broad range of private sector companies, trade groups, privacy and civil liberties advocates, and the executive branch.”

    It’s that last group that should make CISPA opponents concerned. If the new/old CISPA has support from the White House, one of its toughest opponents will be dealt with. The only thing standing in its way this time would be the Senate. Last year, the Senate pushed its own cybersecurity legislation in the Cybersecurity Act of 2012. The bill was ultimately killed and the House-approved CISPA languished and died before it could come up for a vote. That all may change this year as the House and Senate may be united in pushing forward cybersecurity legislation to combat whatever is in Obama’s cybersecurity executive order that’s expected to be revealed on Wednesday.

    So, we come down to the all important question – should you be concerned? The answer is a resounding maybe. CISPA still has plenty of opponents even if the White House decides to announce its support for the bill. The Senate may try to push its own bill again thus killing it, and civil liberty groups will obviously campaign to have it killed.

    In short, CISPA faces the same uphill battle that it faced last year. It’s hard to say if it will be successful time time or not. Even if it isn’t, at least we can look forward to an executive order that may just contain what we hated about CISPA.

    Do you think an executive order would be preferable to CISPA? Do we even need cybersecurity legislation? Let us know in the comments.

  • CISPA Sponsor Doesn’t Think Obama Will Veto CISPA

    We haven’t heard much from the CISPA/SOPA front, but every now and then, an eager-to-please-the-entertainment-industry representative pops up to remind us that legislation like the widely rejected SOPA and CISPA is still on the minds of some folks in Washington. One such representative, Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), is going as far to say that he doubts President Obama would veto CISPA, even though the White House has been pretty resolute about where it stands concerning current efforts to regulate the Internet.

    It even went as far to directly oppose CISPA in a Statement of Administration Policy.

    That, however, hasn’t stopped Representative Rogers from hoping for an alternative outcome. As pointed out by GeekOSystem (via The Daily Dot), Rogers says as much:

    “[I]f we can get a bill on information-sharing to the president’s desk, he’ll sign it. I do believe that…”

    As far as the motivation for Rogers’ belief, that remains an unknown, although, it’s clear he firmly believes Obama will be on CISPA’s side when everything falls into place, something the Daily Dot’s post indicates as well:

    Once the “dust settles,” Rogers predicted, Obama’s only option to enforce U.S. cybersecurity will be to sign CISPA.

    While trying to gauge Rogers’ motivation for his CISPA confidence, both posts point to the retirement of Howard Schmidt, the White House’s adviser on cybersecurity, as a potential reason for the White House’s apparent change of heart concerning Internet regulation, provided that is truly the case. The uncertainty surrounding the White House’s current position on CISPA has to do with the fact that Schmidt’s successor, Michael Daniel, has not made his postion concerning CISPA public.

    If the White House’s position concerning CISPA and other forms of Internet regulation depends solely on their cybersecurity advisor’s recommendation, then perhaps the cries that the United States government isn’t fit to regulate the Internet are a lot closer to the truth than one might think. One thing’s pretty apparent: if President Obama does allow some haphazard form of Internet regulation pass without a veto, his stock with the free thinkers of the country would diminish even more than it already has.