Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the Conference Report to accompany the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 that we will be considering tomorrow. Mr. Speaker, this is my 20th NDAA, and as ever, I am incredibly proud of the bipartisan work that went in to creating it. Amidst all the 1300 provisions, however, I want to focus on section 1752. Section 1752 is based on my bill, H.R. 7331, the National Cyber Director Act, and it is the result of more than 10 years of deliberative thought and advocacy. The provision is simple enough. It creates an Office of the National Cyber Director within the Executive Office of the President. The office is led by a director who will be Presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate. The National Cyber Director is charged with being the President's principal adviser on matters of cybersecurity policy with developing and overseeing implementation of the national cyber strategy. He or she will also be responsible for coordinating government response to serious cyber incidents. And as I said, simple enough, but this represents a complete sea change in the way cybersecurity is handled in the Federal Government. The need could not be more urgent. Of course, cyber operations, whether carried out by criminals or nation states, continue to threaten us as a Nation. Hardly a day goes by where we don't read about a new ransomware attack taking down an entire hospital system or shutting down businesses.…”