Year after year, James Clapper, one of the nation’s top intelligence officials, has placed cyber at the top of his list of the gravest threats facing the U.S. With threats increasing in “frequency, scale, sophistication, and severity of impact,” it is concerning that no major cyber bills have passed Congress in the past 15 years.
Attracting virtually no attention in the presidential election, one could say cybersecurity has hit a political roadblock. One issue is that very few politicians actually understand the technology involved in cybersecurity. Tim Starks of Politico also explains that the topic “also crosses political wires: Industry doesn’t reliably line up on one side; privacy tends to unite far-left and far-right against the middle, while security, traditionally a crowd-pleaser, runs directly against the financial interests of some of the tech companies most affected.” Not to mention, the Republican Party is at odds because information sharing bills such as CISA conflict with their limited business ideology when trying to place emphasis on a strong national security.