On the recordApril 22, 2015
I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, national cybersecurity will be an issue this House will have to constantly address for the foreseeable future. To achieve a system that will protect our Nation's citizens and its infrastructure, we must create a public-private partnership between Federal agencies and American businesses. This partnership will allow Federal agencies and American businesses to share cyber threat information, vulnerabilities within our cyber network, and the creation of new systems to protect consumer information. However, private businesses need to be provided protections and incentives to ensure they are protected from government abuse and private legal proceedings meant to gain access to private security information. Mr. Speaker, one of our top priorities with these two bills should be to clearly acknowledge protections given to companies that engage in penetration testing and clearly state that company proprietary information is protected from nefarious legal proceedings and exempted from Freedom of Information Act requests. It is reasonable to think that individuals would actively pursue this sort of proprietary information for the sole purpose of accessing the vulnerabilities of private cyber networks if we do not clearly state that this information is protected and exempt from those actions. I believe we should consider these possibilities and ensure that protections are provided so our country and its citizens can fully benefit from these laws.
