National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. HIMES. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank both the chairman of the committee and the ranking member for the opportunity to offer this amendment, which would be a very straightforward amendment, which simply requires the Department of Defense to report to the Congress on the policies, doctrine, procedures, and authorities, as well as the definitions associated with a cyber attack on the United States.

This is a small step in a larger very, very important effort that Chairman Westmoreland and I have been working on for some period of time now to try to bring some clarity to what is, today, kind of the Wild West in the cyber realm. In the kinetic realm, we understand very clearly what an act of war is. We understand our doctrine for responding as such.

In the cyber realm, we don't know exactly when a crime becomes an act of war, how to deal with an asymmetric actor versus a nation-state. It is terribly important that we begin the process, with other nations around the world, of establishing some clarity on these points. That won't help our adversaries, but it will remove uncertainty from the system in this new and very, very important realm.

Again, I thank the leadership of the House Armed Services Committee and hope this amendment will be supported.

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