Dutch Ruppersberger: “I support this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. As I said in the opening hearing on worldwide…”

“I support this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. As I said in the opening hearing on worldwide threats, ``education is the keystone of security and prosperity in the 21st century.'' The cyber threats we face are grave, and we need to train the best, the brightest, and the most dedicated--like our veterans and our retired intelligence professionals--to be our next generation of cyber defenders. We call them cyber warriors. Every day, we hear about cyber attacks in the news. Early last year, for example, our financial sector suffered a wide-scale network denial of service attack that proved difficult and very costly to mitigate. The retail giant, Target, is another recent example of our vulnerability to cyber attacks. And today, The Washington Post stated that Iranian hackers are targeting U.S.A. officials through social networks. We need to pass cybersecurity legislation like CISPA, and we need to do far more to expand our bench of cyber professionals and innovators. We need to invest in early education in science, technology, engineering, and math. And we equally need to leverage the experience and wisdom of our veterans and former intelligence professionals. Our adversaries are making heavy investments in cyber education. We must do the same. For this reason, I support this amendment. I thank my colleague from Texas (Mr. Gallego) for his amendment. He represents the area of Texas that is close to the border.…”