[ISN] Bush To Name Tech Security Leaders

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Thu Jan 09 2003 - 22:53:39 PST

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    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34171-2003Jan9.html
    
    By Brian Krebs
    washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
    Thursday, January 9, 2003
    
    The White House is planning to nominate a former intelligence agency
    chairman and a high-ranking Commerce Department official to shape the
    way information technology is used in the fight against terrorism,
    according to government and technology industry sources.
    
    The nominees will be key players in the new Department of Homeland
    Security and would be profoundly influential on a range of technology
    issues, including protecting the nation's online infrastructure,
    directing the development of new surveillance and defense technologies
    and preserving the privacy rights of ordinary citizens.
    
    James Clapper, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
    will be nominated to lead the department's Information Analysis and
    Infrastructure Protection (IAIP) division. He would be responsible not
    only for IT security, but also for getting often competing
    intelligence agencies to pool their data. Inter-agency rivalries
    contributed to a lack of awareness of terrorist activity that presaged
    the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, according
    to a number of studies after the fact.
    
    Commerce Department official John Tritak will be tapped to run the
    Infrastructure Protection division under Clapper, administration
    sources said.
    
    A spokesman for Clapper declined to comment. Tritak did not return
    repeated telephone calls.
    
    A retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general, Clapper runs the National
    Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), which analyzes satellite photos and
    makes military maps. He formerly served as vice president and director
    of intelligence programs at SRA International, a Fairfax-based defense
    contractor.
    
    Clapper, who would report to Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, is
    an effective leader who can accomplish a great deal without letting
    his ego get in the way, said former National Security Agency Deputy
    Director Stewart Baker.
    
    "He's the sort of guy they send in to rescue agencies when they're
    struggling or in trouble, and he'll probably stay a few years setting
    things up and then head off to a new fire," Baker said. "He doesn't
    seem to be carrying any agenda other than to get the job done well."
    
    One senior intelligence officer said Clapper faces a "monstrous" task.
    
    "Everything else looks easy in comparison," he said. "Either part of
    his bifurcated title is tough enough. Put them both together, and it's
    mission impossible ... If it's not mission impossible, it's mission in
    need of a miracle."
    
    Tritak, regarded in the business community as a consensus-builder, is
    seen as a shoe-in for the "Infrastructure Protection" section. He is
    the director of the Commerce Department's Critical Infrastructure
    Assurance Office (CIAO), which coordinates government and
    private-sector efforts to protect important networks from physical and
    cyber-based attacks.
    
    A senior congressional source said high-ranking CIA officer Joan
    Dempsey is a strong candidate for the Information Analysis division
    under Clapper, but a source in the intelligence community said she is
    not in the running. The head of the Information Analysis division
    would be in charge of convincing rival spy agencies to share
    information.
    
    Collaboration among agencies is tough to achieve, said Kim Dougherty,
    vice president of national security affairs at the U.S. Chamber of
    Commerce.
    
    "Each has this defensive posture and doesn't want to show or share all
    their cards, and it's vital that you have someone who understands this
    and can work through the various bureaucracies," Dougherty said.
    
    One key technology post has already been filled at the department.  
    Steven Cooper will serve as chief information officer, taking on
    essentially the same role he had for the past year in the White House
    Office of Homeland Security. Cooper will be responsible for
    integrating disparate information technology systems from 24 agencies
    that are moving into the new department. He previously served as
    executive director of Strategic Information Delivery for Corning Inc.
    
    The White House has not yet chosen an undersecretary of Science and
    Technology, who would supervise the Homeland Security Advanced
    Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), a division of the department with a
    proposed $500 million budget. HSARPA will be modeled after the Defense
    Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a Defense Department
    program that was instrumental in creating the framework of the
    Internet in the 1960s.
    
    The White House also will name a chief privacy officer for the
    department, responding to comments from lawmakers, civil liberties
    groups and the public that defending against terrorism should not
    compromise privacy rights.
    
    The administration is considering Nuala O'Connor Kelly, chief counsel
    at the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, sources said,
    as well as Andy Purdy, an adviser on the president's cybersecurity
    team.
    
    O'Connor Kelly was deputy privacy officer at Internet banner ad giant
    DoubleClick Inc. Purdy has been chief deputy general counsel at the
    U.S. Sentencing Commission since 1989, and a staff member of the
    Senate Ethics Committee.
    
    Purdy said he is interested in the job, adding, "It is an important
    and challenging position that is going to present a great opportunity
    to whoever is appointed."
    
    O'Connor Kelly did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
    
    Richard Clarke, the White House's cybersecurity point man since 1998,
    will not join the department, but will remain chairman of the
    President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, according to one
    administration official and several technology lobbyists with close
    ties to the administration's cybersecurity program. The board plans to
    release a national cybersecurity strategy later this month or in early
    February.
    
    All of the undersecretary and assistant secretary nominees must be
    confirmed by the U.S. Senate, though it remains unclear which
    committees will review them and when.
    
    The department is expected to be operational by Jan. 24, and already
    is scouting three possible locations in Fairfax County, the Washington
    Post reported Wednesday.
    
    
    
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