Cyber Security

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, as I like to say, there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that know they have been hacked. This was recently seen at JPMorgan Chase. Last summer the company suffered a cyber attack that involved the theft of contact information for about 76 million households. In the aftermath, JPMorgan Chase is expected to double its budget for cyber security efforts this year. But the case of JPMorgan is not unique nor a simply cautionary tale for other major companies.

In the last few months, we have seen one of the largest cyber attacks on our Nation's technology infrastructure and other major cyber breaches affecting our financial and transportation sector. I share these comments in the context of having worked as an executive for a cloud computing company for 12 years prior to serving in the Senate. In the midst of these attacks, we see radical Islamic terrorists infiltrating American social media networks to recruit Americans to join them as jihadists overseas.

We must work to address these challenges, and our response must be measured as well as thoughtful, not only about the immediate threats to our cyber infrastructure but also to the long-term effects on our national security and our constitutional freedoms. As we are seeing with the European Union, after years of debate, the EU is currently working on a policy to ensure their citizens are notified of cyber breaches within 72 hours and that victims of these attacks are notified without undue delay.

This is the type of response we need in the United States, much like the notification reforms that I have worked for in Congress. On a near daily basis, we see headlines in our major newspapers that underscore the absolute importance of creating a concrete timeline for implementing timely notification standards.

Having spent more than 12 years working on technology, I know firsthand the power that Big Data holds. I also understand the importance of setting standards and clear guidelines. As we always said in 28 years of business, if you aim at nothing, you will hit it. It is important that we not only expect more but that we also inspect. We want to be assured that guidelines are being followed.

It is unacceptable that any American is left in the dark when their personally identifiable information or PII may have been breached. That is why I have been fighting to strengthen notification requirements and ensure that the American people know when their personal information is compromised. When I was running customer service operations at RightNow Technologies and looking out for our customers, when we had a problem, our policy was that we notified our customers as soon as we were aware of the problem. Maybe we did not always understand the magnitude at the time of the problem, but we believed we owed it to our customers to get back to them as soon as possible.

The customers, the consumers of this country, should be served in a similar way. But as the Senate prepares to consider cyber security reforms, we also need to strike the right balance between protecting our cyber security infrastructure and the personal information of Americans, while also protecting the constitutional rights and the liberty of the American people. We must protect our Nation's security while also preserving our civil liberties.

We must remain vigilant. We must ensure that we have robust and transparent debate about cyber protection and what reforms must be implemented to protect American civil liberties. We see some of these protections in the legislation I cosponsored, spearheaded by Senators Mike Lee and Pat Leahy. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2015 modernizes our Nation's electronic privacy laws and brings protections against warrantless searches into harmony with the technological realities of the 21st century.

The protections currently on the books may have been robust in 1986 when the ECPA was written, but they do not adequately defend our citizens against the mass data storage that currently exists. Nobody in 1986 would have ever envisioned where we are today as to the massive amount of data that is collected and stored today on the American people. This bill ensures that the Federal Government gives our law enforcement officials the tools they need, while ensuring that Montanans and the American people are not subjected to invasive and unwarranted searches.

Privacy and security both matter. I believe we can find a balance that protects both. I urge my colleagues to join me in finding reforms that stop cyber criminals from infiltrating our security networks and also preserve the privacy and the civil liberties that Montanans and Americans hold dear.

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