McCain Proposes Cyber Security Law Committee

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has proposed the creation of a temporary Select Committee on Cybersecurity and Electronic Intelligence Leaks to propose legislation to deal with hacking. McCain believes a separate committee is needed because too many committees now have jurisdiction, The Washington Post reported.

Sen. John McCain (AP photo)

McCain wrote to Senate leaders that cybersecurity legislation “has been drafted by at least three committees and at least seven committees claim some jurisdiction over the issue.” “With so many agencies and the White House moving forward with cyber security proposals, we must provide congressional leadership on this pressing issue of national security,” McCain wrote according to the Post.

Both the Pentagon and Congress have been recent targets of hacking. Last week, the Pentagon acknowledged that thousands of files containing Defense Department data had been stolen from a defense industry computer network in March.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told McCain that the panel already made significant progress on the cybersecurity front, so “[i]t would be a real mistake and a waste of time to restart the process when so much work has already been done,” the Post reported.