Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank my friends, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hurd) and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly), for their leadership in bringing this bill to the floor. Of course, I rise in support of the bill, H.R. 2227, the Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017. Mr. Speaker, over the past several years, we have all witnessed the chaos and havoc that sophisticated cyber attacks can, and do, wreak on our Nation and around the world. Just this past week, there was a massive ransomware attack that hit 200,000 victims in 150 countries, and those numbers are expected to grow exponentially. This is just the latest in a string of high-profile attacks, including Sony, Yahoo, the OPM data breach, and even efforts to influence our elections and those in Europe. These attacks jeopardize America's safety, privacy, and cost untold millions of dollars in the private sector and public sector as well. These attacks affect both the public and private sector, and bad actors repeatedly target our Federal Government. Those attacks often succeed because Federal computer systems are so outdated that they cannot implement network defenses as basic as encryption. Some legacy systems go back a half a century. The Federal Government spends nearly $60 billion a year sustaining its existing IT systems.…”