Cybersecurity Prime Issue for AG Nominee

With Senate Hearings Beginning Next Week, Cyber Consultant with M22 Strategies, Mattie Fein Calls on Senate to Ask the Right Questions

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M22 Strategies, Inc.

Jan 27, 2015, 10:13 ET

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In her latest op-ed, in The Hill, security and cyber consultant Mattie Fein calls on the Senate to recognize cybersecurity for the threat that it is by ensuring Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch has a comprehensive plan for cybersecurity reform in her Senate confirmation hearings starting next week.

"Protecting our metadata is both the new frontier and the new L'Enfant terrible of policy and law." Fein said. "Attorney General Nominee Loretta Lynch should be questioned closely on pioneering civil remedies in response to digital age hacking and theft of government or private information that threatens national security and Americans' privacy during her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee."

To date, most cyberattacks launched against the United States have been addressed with symbolic criminal indictments or simply dismissed and downplayed. At present the Justice Department's criminal indictment last year against five Chinese People's Liberation Army members for hacking into the accounts of major United States corporations has had no meaningful arrests or proactive result. North Korea has escaped any major response to its hacking of Sony, Edward Snowden is in Russia and Julian Assange continues to enjoy political asylum for issues unrelated to his possession of stolen government property.

"Civil actions to deter cyber theft of government national security matters or private information are not a panacea. Our future national security and securing private information depends on a future A.G. that will seek remedies beyond symbolic indictments. The cyber theft epidemic will not enter remission on its own and nominee Loretta Lynch should be asked her intentions to use policies and laws already on the books." The full piece can be found here.

Mattie Fein was the Republican congressional candidate for the former 36th district of California in 2010. Ms. Fein currently is President of M22 Strategies, Inc. a policy, research, and communications group in Washington, DC. She currently is consulting on cybersecurity policy issues.

SOURCE M22 Strategies, Inc.