Ben Cardin

I understand Senator Barrasso's intent, but that is not what the bill says.

We do not want to go back to rivers catching fire and the circumstances that Senator Boxer alluded to in her opening comments.

Thank you for holding today's hearing on the EPA's Proposed National Ambient Air Quality Standard for Ground-Level Ozone.

Cybersecurity crosses many committees' jurisdictions here, and crosses many agencies in the Federal Government.

I really want to thank both of the witnesses here.

I think that those are good suggestions. I agree that the technology at NIST needs to be better understood.

I find your testimony to be very, very helpful. And it does underscore the point that it is complicated.

NIST itself has said that its framework needs to be put into the international sector and discussed among all nations.

All I am suggesting is, make it more visible, because, if you do not do it, no other country will.

I would argue that Internet freedom and human rights issues are very much a matter for the military to be concerned about, because it does lead to violence, and it does lead to the use of our military.

If the United States does not mention it, it will not get mentioned. We are the leader on this.

I want to stop you for a moment, because, in your testimony, you come up with a good recommendation that there be voluntary norms of responsible state behavior during peacetime that would be universally appropriate, and that we will keep…

We are at peace with Russia, we are at peace with China.

So, how far are we away, timewise, from having a policy in NATO that we will feel comfortable with in regards to how cyber fits into the traditional defense posture of NATO?

Well, I am not going to get theoretical. And I know this is very, very tough.

We are also doing it because we can perform a mission to this country that is critically important

We need to make sure that we have the protocols in place so we can protect the security of our country.

The international impact and our international coordination is critically important to the security of this country.

The jurisdiction of this committee is critically important to our country.

Russia has increased its cyber attacks against the United States since sanctions were put in place.

We now recognize that we are under direct attack by cyber soldiers organized by government to attack our country.

Thank you very much for being here and taking the time to make this a priority of yours.

Can you answer my question about whether the United States is prepared to enter into a definitive standard that could jeopardize our security needs in using the Internet to defend America?

And how do you justify a Russian interpretation or a Chinese interpretation that, under national security, they are doing things that clearly violate our understanding of international law?

The government cannot do this alone. We really have no choice but to work closely with the private sector.