Protecting Cyber Networks Act

Floor Speech

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Madam Chair, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1560, the Protecting Cyber Networks Act. I would like to first thank Chairman Nunes for his great leadership and collaboration with my committee and Judiciary on this bill, and also the ranking member, Adam Schiff, a good friend as well, for his great work in the direction that this bill has gone. I think it has gone in the right direction. Also I know former Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger was here. I want to thank him for his leadership over the many years on this important issue of cybersecurity.

Madam Chair, this legislation comes at a critical time of rising cyber threats and attacks on our digital networks. Cyber breaches and attacks are affecting Americans' privacy, security, and prosperity. Individuals are having their most private information compromised. Businesses are seeing their intellectual property stolen and their networks damaged.

The Federal Government's sensitive information is being targeted. The country's critical infrastructure is being probed by foreign enemies.

Detecting and defending against these digital assaults requires timely and robust information sharing between the public and private sectors. This exchange of data is crucial to connecting the dots, identifying cyber attacks, and shutting them down.

The Protecting Cyber Networks Act will enable private companies to share cyber threat information on a voluntary basis with the Federal Government. This bill provides essential liability protection for sharing cyber threat indicators through trusted civilian agency portals.

Again, Madam Chair, I commend Chairman Nunes for his important work on this bill and thank him for his great partnership in working together to have these two complementary bills, as tomorrow I will bring to the floor a pro-security, pro-privacy bill, the National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015, which further reinforces the role of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center as the hub for cyber threat information sharing.

Chairman Nunes and I have worked in lockstep to remove obstacles preventing greater cyber threat information sharing across the private and public sectors. I commend the staff on both sides of the aisle, who have operated in tandem as we crafted these cybersecurity bills. I would also like to acknowledge Chairman Goodlatte for devising the House's standard liability exemption language for this week's cybersecurity bill.

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