Political Quotes

“I thank the distinguished ranking member, my friend from Maryland, and I also thank the distinguished chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. I proudly join them in cosponsoring this legislation and rising in strong support of H.R. 1136, the Federal Information Security Amendments Act of 2013. The chairman and ranking member of the full committee have worked in a bipartisan fashion to advance this bill to the floor today, and they deserve great credit. H.R. 1163 is desperately needed to address a looming and critical threat to our Nation's economic and national security. As the Government Accountability Office testified before our committee in its 2013 High Risk Report, the number of cyber incidents has grown exponentially among Federal agencies and, for that matter, in the private sector. Specifically, in the year 2006, they reported 5,503 cyber incidents to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Six years later, that same number was 48,562, which is an astounding 782 percent increase in just 6 years. According to the Government Accountability Office, cyber attacks involving Federal systems and critical infrastructure, Mr. Speaker, could be devastating to the country. Yet, its audits have consistently revealed information security deficiencies in public and private, financial and nonfinancial systems.…”