The AP reports today (via USA Today) that the House Republican leadership will propose moving the cyber security offices of the Department of Homeland Security back to the White House as part of the House version of the intelligence reorganization. According to the article, the change reflects “frustration among some Republican lawmakers about what they view as a lack of attention paid to cybersecurity by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).”
CRA has certainly shared that frustration, especially a frustration with DHS’s relative lack of adequate funding support for cyber security research and development efforts at the agency. As we’ve noted before, cyber security gets a very small share of a $1 billion science and technology budget at DHS — $18 million in FY 04 (and that is double the amount the administration initially proposed). However, it’s not clear to me — having only seen the proposal summarized in news reports — that this new effort would have any effect on the current level of support for cyber security R&D or address any of the concerns we’ve raised (pdf) concerning cyber R&D efforts at other agencies as well.
Judging from the responses of the industry folks cited in the article, it doesn’t sound like very many folks were consulted before this got put on the fast track.
More details as we figure them out….