Government gets things done… and does it at the pace of deliberation. I want to share a few updates.
Axios dove into the pace of tech regulation as the midterms approach, updating on three major areas. On antitrust, most of the major bills have stalled, despite a bill on fees for large mergers passing in the House. On privacy, the American Data and Privacy Protection Act passed out of committee. Still, House Speaker Pelosi voiced reservations about it limiting her home state of California’s privacy law, and it has not been taken up for a vote. The third, children’s online safety, saw bills come out of committee in the Senate, but the House has no corresponding bill. The bottom line – COVID, the economy, climate, health, and tax spending all took priority.
Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee who is retiring later this year, shared his vision released this week detailing how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) should grow through 2025. The plan lays out six tenets that CISA should focus on to grow, including maturing public-sector cyber workforce training, “aggressively” growing cybersecurity capabilities, and continuing to build relationships across the federal government and private sector.
And in an update to the national cybersecurity strategy, National Cyber Director Chris Inglis said Wednesday that the release is still pending, anywhere from a month or two or three to possibly further. The delay was partially credited to a flood of the federal government and private sector feedback.
Inglis said the strategy will address regulation and market forces, the international dimension of digital security, as well as the assigning of roles and responsibilities and how to “actually get critical infrastructure into the right place.”
Why do we care?
We’ll be looking to see what happens in the next session of Congress… and those midterm elections matter to see what will be prioritized. Public service announcement… go out and vote.
That said, there’s practical work being done around how the strategy for cyber will play out, and I previously covered the call for feedback. The rollout now changes due specifically to hearing from the industry. Next year may turn out to be a significant one for tech and cybersecurity regulation.