Prez on cyber-crime: "It has happened to me"
President Obama announced a sweeping new initiative to beef up the nation's defenses against attacks on the nation's increasingly important computer networks, including a plan to put a cyber-security chief in the White House.
"Cyber-space is real and so are the risks that come with it," said Obama. The president for the first time revealed that his campaign was victimized by hackers last year (though he assured contributors that their personal information was never accessed). "I know how it feels to have privacy violated because it has happened to me," he said.
He called cyber-security "one of the most serious economic and security challenges we face as a nation," and added: "We're not as prepared as we should be."
The famously Blackberry-addicted president said he would personally select his new cyber-czar, but he named no names today.
"The networks and computers we depend on every day" are "a strategic national asset," and keeping them secure must be a top national priority, Obama said. "America's economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cyber-security," the president added.
The president said he's worried about "a weapon of mass disruption" from al-Qaeda or other enemies of the USA. At a time when everything from military systems to the electric grid that powers the nation are computer dependent "acts of terror could come. . . from a few keystrokes on a computer," Obama said.
In raising the government's involvement in cyber-security, the president promised not to trample on the civil liberties of individual computer users or the rights of the private corporations that own most of the nation's computer networks. "I remain firmly committed to net neutrality," he said.
(Posted by Kathy Kiely)
Original article posted on USAToday http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2009/05/67408221/1
