Canadian COMPETITION LAW

Guest post by Christine Duhaime (Duhaime Law)

The U.S. government has released a revised version of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which would establish a public-private partnership to improve the security of the Internet. Pursuant to the proposed legislation, the private sector would develop voluntary security practices for the Internet which would be subject to oversight from a U.S. government multi-agency council. Private sector participants would be required to share with the multi-agency council, Internet generated information, particularly (but not apparently limited to) connected with potential threats.

The material aspects of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 are as follows:

1.  Establishment of National Cybersecurity Council with representative from the U.S. Departments of Defence, Justice and Commerce and the intelligence community as well as other federal agencies. The Council will be chaired by the Department of Homeland Security. The purpose of the Council would be to conduct risk assessments of threats and to report and monitor the source of the information and the threats;

2.  Establishment of Private-Public Partnership to develop security practices for vetting and approval by the Council;

3.  Creation of incentives for the private sector to adopt security practices and report to the Council. It is proposed that by joining in the program, private sector participants will limit potential liability for future Internet security issues;

4.  Generate information sharing practices to encourage the private sector to share information about threats with each other and with the federal government. Those that engage in information sharing practices will be protected from liability to some extent; and

5.  Consolidating federal agency reporting by establishing a unified Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security and streamlining reporting requirements to ensure that federal agencies are aware of, and address, network vulnerabilities.

On July 19, 2012, President Obama released an Op-Ed piece he wrote that was published in the Wall Street Journal in support of the revised Cybersecurity Act of 2012, that is available at The White House website here.

Some aspects of President Obama’s article are unmistakably reminiscent of the events in the Bruce Willis film “Live Free or Die Hard,“ wherein John McClure foils the plans of cyber-terrorists attacking the infrastructure of the U.S. with an intent to disrupt the power, public utilities, traffic and other computer-controlled systems.

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