Congress approves intel bills

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes and Ranking Member Adam Schiff released the following statements after Congress approved the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 and the FY16 Intelligence Authorization Act on December 18 as part of the omnibus spending bill:

Chairman Nunes: “The American people overwhelmingly agree that we need to improve our defenses against cyber attacks and to keep our Intelligence Community fully funded to track and neutralize terrorists. That consensus is reflected in the big, bipartisan majorities that approved these bills in Congress. I’m grateful to the Appropriations Committee for including these bills in the omnibus package, and I look forward to their swift passage into law.”

Ranking Member Schiff: “Today, Congress greatly contributed to our national security by passing the Intelligence Authorization Act and the Cybersecurity Act.  The IAA is the annual bill that makes sure the U.S. Intelligence Community has what it needs to safeguard the country, particularly in the face of grave threats from terrorism. The bill also ensures that Congress has what it needs to conduct rigorous oversight of the IC and safeguard the privacy of the American people. Additionally, after years of effort, Congress has finally passed a cyber information-sharing bill that tackles the scourge of cyber attacks while providing the strongest privacy protections to date. The Cybersecurity Act is landmark legislation that enables and encourages the private sector and the Government to rapidly and responsibly exchange cyber threat information. With this bill, we are crowdsourcing security so that information about a threat found on one system can be quickly shared – and other companies, agencies and consumers can be protected from a similar attack. At the same time, this bill protects privacy by requiring the removal of any personal information unrelated to the cyber threat prior to sharing and by requiring that it only enter the government through a civilian agency. There is more work to be done to safeguard our networks, our critical infrastructure, and our privacy against cyber bad actors, but this bill takes a critical first step. I congratulate and thank everyone who has worked so hard on the IAA this year and the cyber legislation for many years.”

Source: HPSCI