lieberman

Sen. Joseph Lieberman spent years fighting unsuccessfully for a so-called Internet kill switch that would grant the president vast power over private networks during a "national cyberemergency."

Now Lieberman (I-Conn.), who did not seek re-election, is hoping a more modest version of his proposal will be approved before he leaves office in January. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has inserted the cybersecurity bill into the Senate's post-election calendar, and a vote could happen as early as this week after debate on a proposal to open more public land for hunting and fishing.

That move has reignited … Read more

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman sent a letter to President Obama today urging him to use his executive power and publish "advisory" guidelines on a cybersecurity order.

"Countless national security leaders from your Administration and the previous Administration have made clear that the threat from cyber attack is similar to the threat we faced from terrorism on September 10, 2001 -- the danger is real and imminent, yet we have not acted to defend against it," Lieberman wrote. "We know our adversaries are already stealing valuable intellectual property and exploiting our critical infrastructure … Read more

Federal regulators charged with overseeing the reliability of the electrical grid expressed concerns about proposed cybersecurity standards and warned that existing law may not protect "against fast-moving cybersecurity threats."

Yesterday's statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission came in a response to pointed questions from two senators, Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Susan Collins (R-ME), the panel's senior Republican. The senators made their inquiries in July, a few weeks after CNET published an article on the topic.

Lieberman and Collins had asked for an "expeditious comprehensive investigation" … Read more

As the U.S. Senate races toward its August recess, lawmakers are filing tons of amendments to the Cybersecurity Act, a number of them designed to add privacy protections.

The amendments are an effort to meet the wishes of pro-business Republicans and pro-privacy Democrats and to reach a compromise that can be enacted into law. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is pushing to get cybersecurity legislation voted on this week before the Senate breaks for recess in August.

The Democrat-based Cybersecurity Act of 2012, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) as it stands has already been modified to meet the needs … Read more

Two U.S. senators are calling for a federal investigation of the power grid's potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities after a CNET article last month raised security concerns.

The request for a probe comes from Sens. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Susan Collins (R-ME), the panel's senior Republican, who warned that lapses "could undermine part of the security system protecting our grid."

They sent a letter yesterday to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking for an "expeditious comprehensive investigation into these allegations," which deal with digital signatures the industry … Read more

Security technology used by U.S. electric utilities is flawed and could increase the odds of computer intrusions or sabotage, the chairman of an industry standards group warns.

Jesse Hurley, co-chair of the North American Energy Standards Board's Critical Infrastructure Committee, says the mechanism for creating digital signatures for authentication is insufficiently secure because not enough is being done to verify identities and some companies are attempting to weaken standards to fit their business models.

"These certificates protect access to control systems," Hurley told CNET. "They protect access to a $400 billion market. They protect access … Read more

Joseph Lieberman, the independent senator from Connecticut, sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page this week expressing his opinion that Google-owned blogging platform Blogger should provide a button that would let readers of Blogger-powered blogs flag "terrorist content," according to a report.

In the letter, Lieberman says that alleged pipe-bomber Jose Pimentel, who was arrested by the New York Police Department last weekend, used a Blogger-based blog to spread hate-filled screeds and links to bomb-making instructions.

(As of this writing, the blog referenced by Lieberman, trueislam1.com, appears to have been taken down.)

"As demonstrated by this recent case, Google's webhosting site, Blogger, is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content," reads the reported Lieberman letter, which was posted online by blog TPM.… Read more

A Senate proposal that has become known as the Internet "kill switch" bill was reintroduced this week, with a tweak its backers say eliminates the possibility of an Egypt-style disconnection happening in the United States.

As CNET reported last month, the 221-page bill hands Homeland Security the power to issue decrees to certain privately owned computer systems after the president declares a "national cyberemergency." A section in the new bill notes that does not include "the authority to shut down the Internet," and the name of the bill has been changed to include the … Read more

Three U.S. senators who want to give the president emergency powers over the Internet are protesting comparisons with the "kill switch" highlighted by Egypt's Net disconnection.

In a statement yesterday, the politicians said their intent was to allow the president "to protect the U.S. from external cyber attacks," not to shut down the Internet, and announced that they would revise their legislation to explicitly prohibit that from happening.

"Some have suggested that our legislation would empower the president to deny U.S. citizens access to the Internet," said the statement from … Read more