We're not kidding about overheated cybersecurity rhetoric

Tate Watkins and I have an essay in Wired today looking at how the overheated rhetoric and unsupported claims around cybersecurity inflate the threat and may lead us to a new cyber-industrial complex. It's the same theme we explore in our recent Harvard National Security Journal article and also in a feature in Reason a few months ago.

Rockefeller on #Cybersecurity : planes slamming into one another, chemical plant explosions "on the brink of what could be a calamity"

— Katy Bachman (@KatyontheHill) February 14, 2012

What do we mean by overheated rhetoric that serves more to scare than to inform? Here are some statements from Sen. Jay Rockefeller introducing the comprehensive cybersecurity bill on the Senate floor today:

"The experts are warning us that we are on the brink of something much worse. Something that could bring down our economy, rip open our national security, or even take lives. The prospect of mass casualty is what has propelled us to make cybersecurity a top priority for this year, to make it an issue that transcends political parties or ideology. …

"Admiral Mike Mullen, former Joint Chiefs chairman, said that a cybersecurity threat is the only other threat that is on the same level as Russia's stockpile of nuclear weapons. …

"We are on the brink of what could be a calamity. A widespread cyber attack could potentially be as devastating to this country as the terror attacks that tore apart this country 10 years ago. …

"Think about how many people could die if a cyber-terrorist attacked our air traffic control system, both now and when it's made modern, and our planes slammed into one another. Or rails switching networks were hacked causing trains carrying people, and more than that perhaps hazzardous material, toxic materials, to derail or collide in the midst of our most populate urban areas like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC, etc."

He also touch on pipeline explosions and electricity blackouts, of course, and said that we needed to act immediately. It seems that some GOP senators are calling for a delay on the bill. Stay tuned.