Political Quotes

“I wish to say a few words regarding the amendment offered by myself along with Senators Nunn and Kyl pertaining to the Computer Emergency Response Team [CERT]. CERT is located in Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute [SEI] in my home State of Pennsylvania. This amendment would allocate an additional $2 million to be given to CERT to maintain their funding profile. When the SEI established its emergency response team in 1988, three members of the SEI technical staff were assigned to respond to computer security incidents on the Internet. Nearly 8 years later, use of the Internet has grown by 2,500 percent, and there has been a 2,000-percent increase in the number of network intrusions. The number of computer emergencies that CERT has responded to has grown as well, from 32 in 1989 to 2,500 in 1995. However, due to past congressional actions which have imposed ceilings on federally-funded research and development centers, SEI and specifically CERT, has only been able to expand by nine people, limiting their ability to perform essential services.”