Political Quotes

“Basically, I would say I agree. There is not much I could add to that. This is not legislation that is a solution in search of a problem. This is a real problem. Again, we are hearing it from all the cyber security experts. If the private sector owners of critical cyber infrastructure-- electric power grids, telecommunications, finance, water dams, et cetera--if they were taking enough defensive action, we wouldn't want to act, but they are not. And we understand why. We have talked about this. A lot of the CIOs--chief information officers--in companies get frustrated that their CEOs don't want to devote enough time and resources to beefing up their cyber defenses. The Senator said something very important, which is cyber theft and cyber attack is so insidious that a lot of people and companies who are victims of cyber attack don't even know it. My great fear is that there is a lot of malware or bugs--I called it cyber cells earlier--planted in some of our critical cyber control systems in our country waiting for the moment when an enemy wants to attack us. Senator Reid yesterday pointed to the terrible tragedy in India where the power system has gone out. There is no evidence there was a cyber attack, but I saw today that 600 million people are without electricity. It has had a terrible effect on quality of life, on the economy, et cetera. Unfortunately, this is what an enemy who is capable today could do to us, and they are out there.”