Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1560, Protecting Cyber Networks Act, and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1731, National Cybersecurity Protection Advancement Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, national cybersecurity will be an issue this House will
have to constantly address for the foreseeable future. To achieve a
system that will protect our Nation's citizens and its infrastructure,
we must create a public-private partnership between Federal agencies
and American businesses. This partnership will allow Federal agencies
and American businesses to share cyber threat information,
vulnerabilities within our cyber network, and the creation of new
systems to protect consumer information. However, private businesses
need to be provided protections and incentives to ensure they are
protected from government abuse and private legal proceedings meant to
gain access to private security information.

Mr. Speaker, one of our top priorities with these two bills should be
to clearly acknowledge protections given to companies that engage in
penetration testing and clearly state that company proprietary
information is protected from nefarious legal proceedings and exempted
from Freedom of Information Act requests. It is reasonable to think
that individuals would actively pursue this sort of proprietary
information for the sole purpose of accessing the vulnerabilities of
private cyber networks if we do not clearly state that this information
is protected and exempt from those actions.

I believe we should consider these possibilities and ensure that
protections are provided so our country and its citizens can fully
benefit from these laws.

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