Andy Greenberg of Forbes discusses the initial concerns and reactions of privacy advocates to Obama’s cybersecurity plan. Concerns kicked into higher gear last week with news about NSA involvement in monitoring government traffic on private sectors and the Einstein 3 program. Greenberg reports:
While the concerns over privacy and the NSA are valid, they could hamper the progress of the Obama administration’s cyber plan, says James Lewis, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which authored an influential paper aimed at shaping the president’s thinking on cyber issues. “We have technologies that would greatly improve cybersecurity, but their use wouldn’t be consistent with our laws on surveillance and privacy,” Lewis says, pointing to statutes such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which disallows wiretaps without a warrant.
Lewis says these laws may need to be amended to allow effective government monitoring systems, but he notes that the scandal surrounding the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping practices may have precluded that kind of legislation.
Read more in Forbes.