Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ISSA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Hopefully there will be time left over also for Mr. Chaffetz, who has worked hard on this amendment.

I want to thank the chairman for working with our committee on this amendment that clarifies in the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act that FOIA, the Freedom of Information Access Act, is in fact clearly in effect for the vast majority of this information.

We understand that companies--I will just take an example--such as electric utility companies may share their very vulnerabilities as a part of a process to reduce or eliminate these vulnerabilities. We certainly understand that that's not FOIAable. National security is not FOIAable. However, we, in this amendment, ensure that everything is at least possibly FOIAable whenever it would be appropriate, and then the only question is does it stand for one of the exclusions. So by making it narrow, we tell the American people that the Freedom of Information Act is in effect on cybersecurity and will not be unreasonably withheld.

I think this is critical at a time when greater transparency is the promise and there is a great deal of concern about cybersecurity somehow being something that would take away America's freedoms. Just the opposite is true. Our freedom of the Internet, our freedom to have an effective and efficient system on which to build our infrastructure both for electricity and other utilities, but also for our everyday life, essentially requires the kind of cooperation that we anticipate.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source