Republican Task Force Makes Cybersecurity Recommendations

The House Republican Cybersecurity Task Force issued a report yesterday laying out a comprehensive plan for dealing with cybersecurity threats. The strategy that they outlined may have an impact on the progress of pending legislation which directly affects private investigators, including bills that could limit the use of pretexting.

For the past several years, many of the privacy bills considered by Congress have been bottled up because of jurisdictional disputes among various committees. This year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated that many measures may be packaged and considered as one bill on the Senate floor. This would include "data breach" and "identity theft" bills as well as those dealing with cyber threats.

The task force concluded:

"Legislative packaging and vehicles must, of course, be decided by Leadership, but we are generally skeptical of large, comprehensive bills on complex topics, at least as the bills are being written".

It is now less likely that there will be a comprehensive bill combining the privacy and cybersecurity issues. I think that increases the odds that some privacy issues will be considered on their own, which increases their chance of enactment. In general, the more comprehensive the bill, the more likely someone will object to a provision.

Nevertheless, there are still several committees considering privacy measures that may have to be packaged before going to the floor, particularly in the Senate. But the process may have just become less complicated, making passage more likely.

Here's a link to the report:
Cybersecurity Report

Regardless of Congressional strategy, NCISS will be working to protect access to essential information for private investigators.