tweets. at noon eastern, c-span will break away for live coverage of the house. our supreme court coverage continues on c-span3. here on c-span2, the u.s. senate returns at 10 a.m. eastern. members begin debate on a bill to repeal tax subsidies for large oil companies followed by a procedural vote on the measure. and on c-span3, you can hear the audio from today's supreme court oral argument when it's released at approximately 1 p.m. eastern. >> this week "the communicators" continues looking at cybersecurity and congressional efforts to write legislation addressing it. today two key members of the house of representatives working on cyber issues. >> congressman lee terry, what's the status of cybersecurity legislation in the house? >> guest: well, there's one bill that everyone's pretty much agreed to, the rogers bill, that allows the nsa to communicate to

industries about known threats. that hasn't moved, it's still this committee as we're building on that. >> host: well, as you know, the senate is actively pursuing cybersecurity legislation, two bills going forward, the lieberman-collins and the republican bill. where do you stand on those? >> guest: well, those are ones that we will look at, but we're actually doing our own efforts in energy and commerce in the house of representatives, so i was on the speaker's task force, speaker's task force, and now i'm co-leading with dana eshoo on a bipartisan committee that will give us the outline. we want to just make sure that we're doing it in a little different way than the senate's doing. >> host: if collins-lieberman bill comes to the house, what are your thoughts about that specific bill? >> guest: well, i think, you know, i think that bill comes

close. but what we're looking at is a way of breaking down barriers to empower private sector internet providers, backbone developers. first of all, those are the first line. and so we need to empower them. so it's a little bit different philosophy than the lieberman bill or the mccain bill that i think creates a little bit of government involvement, and we're trying to facilitate communications as opposed to create something new. >> host: do you think the department of homeland security is the right vehicle for monitoring cybersecurity? >> guest: my personal answer to that would be, hell no. i don't think homeland security would be the right entity. and, frankly, it flies in the face of industry has to be nimble, they have to be quick,

they have to be able to talk to each other. and if they have to communicate through homeland security or with the permission of homeland security, you've defeated the whole purpose of making them nimble. >> host: congressman terry, what about the issue of critical infrastructure? what is your approach to including that in any regulatory bill? >> guest: well, i'll have to see how our working group deals with that, but right now we seem soft a consensus that we're going to treat all industries alike, make sure they have access to information, and the industries themselves can choose which one is more critical than another. for example, electric generation is probably more important to financial services to wall street than to a pasture in western nebraska. so, obviously, one's critical or not, but they all have to start with getting information, receiving information from the nsa or others of a relevant threat to them.

>> host: and the development of those standards of what is included and what is not, who's responsible for that? >> guest: that would be within the industry because i really feel and most of us on the task force feel that once you start setting standards and you're empowering a government agency to develop definitions of critical, then you're locking people in or those entities into a long process. and by the time they develop a standard, everyone's gone by them. and is so it's about sharing information be instantaneously and involving our government entities into that decision making process is counterructive. >> host: now, one of the concerns that the house, many members of the house have brought up is the issue of privacy -- >> guest: yes. >> host: -- within cybersecurity. what are your views on that? >> guest: well, anytime we start looking at monitoring packets of information flowing through the system, you're going to raise the red flag of privacy. so what we have to be careful about is if telecommunications

or backbone industry is looking into packets to discover known codes that are bot nets or viruses, that that's all they can do is communicate to each other that that exists out there, it's coming and to be able to defend against it. so i think if we went through an independent, nongovernmental clearinghouse of information, that resolves some of the privacy issues. and also then the discussions back and forth before government. because i think it's all right for government to say, hey, we have found this new code, it can be released at any time, you may want to prevent or develop something to prevent this specific code or watch for it. the issue then becomes if during that inspection the backbone operators or network operators discover something, they shouldn't have to tell that to

the government. i think that's where the privacy concerns really come in, and we're going to have to set limits on that. >> host: you used the word "nongovernmental." >> guest: yes. >> host: what kind of group? >> guest: well, what i'm talking about here is the industry group, but they've got to form some level of a clearinghouse amongst industry where perhaps the nsa or homeland security can communicate in and that they can distribute the information to the necessary groups to prevent the harm. and be as long -- and as long as it's from government to industry through this clearinghouse, i think we resolve a lot of the privacy issues. >> host: congressman terry, when an individual user on a computer, will they be affected by this cybersecurity legislation? will they have their records tracked, etc. >> guest: well, that's what we can't allow, is the tracking of the individual computer user's

records. so when we look at authorizing them to look into packets for this code, the only thing they're looking at is 1s and 0s. so they don't know anything other than, oops, here's that virus code out there, and then they can develop something to block only that. >> host: now, when we talked with senator susan collins last week, a fellow republican, she said that she is against further burdening business with more regulation and that their bill is not a burden to business, that dhs does take a backseat. >> guest: well, and we're closer to that. what we can't do is regulate because what we do then is freeze industry in that place while the hackers and attackers just go right around them. so susan's right on that point. i think there's some issues in

their committee or in their bill about privacy as well and input from the department of homeland security and nsa and communication back and forth that we're going to have to work on. >> host: now, what is the cybersecurity working group? >> guest: the working group is intra-energy and commerce, and it's three republicans, three democrats working side by side to develop, in essence, the outline for any necessary legislation. >> host: do you see legislation coming into the house this year and passing? >> guest: yes. i do think so. speaker boehner has made it a goal. we need to do something. the president wants something, so i think there's a positive atmosphere for getting something done this year. >> host: and, again, when you look at the legislation that will be coming, how do you make it comprehensive, or do you make

it comprehensive? >> guest: well, that's a great question because the more layers as we try to understand the totality of cybersecurity we learn one layer and have to learn the next. so it's very complex. so we have to, part of our goal as the task force is to take that complexity and make it simple. that's difficult to do in itself. and so i think what you'll come up with is a bill that's going to be simple, streamlined saying we're going to eliminate these barriers, antitrust, facilitate the communications and then simply say go after it. >> host: what kind of current cybersecurity legislation is on the books, and would a new bill build on that or change it? >> guest: well, that's the issue, is there really isn't a cybersecurity bill out there. you know, there are certain issues about opting in and

opting out. we've discussed spyware and malware, but it's really hard to define, so, therefore, there isn't a hard bill or law on the books. so, actually, i think we're building something from scratch here. so the issue is that we've got to remove barriers, not develop any new bureaucracy or really new mandates. >> host: do you have firms in omaha that you represent that are interested in this legislation? are people back home interested in this? >> guest: you know, it surprises me how interested people are back home about cybersecurity. so when i bring it up, i always get a lively conversation and, yeah, there are some firms back home a lot of telecommunications, network providers, level 3 started in omaha. so there's probably a little higher understanding of cybersecurity because of the businesses in omaha. >> host: we have been talking with representative lee terry, a

republican of nebraska, member of the energy and commerce committee and co-head of the cybersecurity working group. congressman, thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> host: and now joining us on "the communicators" is representative jim langevin. he is the co-founder of the house cybersecurity caucus as well as the top democrat on the armed services subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. congressman langevin joins us from providence, rhode island. congressman, if we could, though, start by telling us your view on the collins-lieberman cybersecurity bill that's currently in the senate. >> guest: sure, i'd be glad to. first, peter, i want to thank you very much for your continued interest in this very important topic. on the collins-lieberman legislation, let me just say that i'm very pleased that senator lieberman and senator collins have finally introduced a comprehensive bill on

cybersecurity. it certainly isn't strong enough in my opinion, i'd like to see it stronger, but it is a very good start and a move in the right direction. i commend them for their due diligence and really for trying to move this issue forward. we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and it's certainly something i'd like to see move along and, hopefully, get through our conference committee with the house and the senate. >> host: now, congressman, when you say it's not strong enough, in what areas? >> guest: well, one of the things, of course, it relies on is department of homeland security and working with the private sector to come up with cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure, for example. a good first start, but i think it's going to really take probably stronger measures to put in place rather than, you know, this initial effort.

but it's, i think it's good for a start. so i will, you know, wait to see how it unfolds and to see more of the specifics. but i want to see, of course, if, in fact, it passes the type of standards that are adopted and then how they're implemented. the stronger the standards, the more confidence i'll have in its effect. >> host: now, you mentioned dhs. in your view, is dhs the right agency? because some of the bills that have been push inside the house have the military, have a military aspect to them. >> guest: well, what i've called for is a cybersecurity director in the office of -- in the white house. basically, giving that position much more directive authority to coordinate and implement cybersecurity protections. department of homeland security is going to be a policy equation, and they're doing the best they can with the tools and

the resources that they have. but they've been challenged because they don't have the right and their most robust authorities to compel other departments and agencies to engage in cybersecurity. you know, it may not be the mission, for example, of the department of treasury or commerce or state to protect their government networks. they have other missions that are their primary focus. we need to have an agency that has cybersecurity as a primary focus but also an entity that has both policy and budgetary authority to compel adoption of robust cybersecurity standards. i have believed and i've advocated and the csi has commissioned which i co-chaired as one of the four national co-chairs of this commission called for a position to be established within the white house with this robust policy and budgetary authority. that being said, the lieberman-collins legislation does give dhs more authority than what they have now, and it does begin the process of closer collaboration between government and the private sector.

it really will require a public-private partnership working together to get cybersecurity done right, and that's one of the highlights of the bill and something that i do support. >> host: now, congressman langevin, how do you address some of the privacy concerns that have been raised by the aclu, the electronic privacy information center and other groups regarding cybersecurity and the definition of threats? >> guest: right. and it's a very good point to raise, privacy and these concerns, i think this is something we have to be very attuned to, very sensitive to, and we have to work with the groups to instill confidence that we're doing in the right way. i don't want government to have any stronger response to this than is necessary. i've always believed that the internet should be open and free, it's the way it was designed, and we want to maintain that openness and that government regulation ostensibly should have the lightest touch possible and always respecting

privacy and civil liberties concerns. the problem that we have is that where the greatest damage can be done in critical infrastructure, for example, by way of the electric grid is probably the best example. we, clearly, the government and the american people have a legitimate public policy interest in making sure that we are protecting those entities, those sectors much more strongly than what we are right now. the electric grid, in my opinion, is not adopting strong enough, robust cybersecurity protections, and it leaves them incredibly vulnerable to a cyber attack that could shut down, for example, a whole sector of the country's electric grid which could do massive damage to our economy and potentially even loss of life. >> host: now, senator mccain has introduced a cybersecurity bill which isn't quite as stringent as the collins-lieberman bill, and he says according to him the senate democratic bill is a bureaucratic or a regulatory

leviathan, and there have been some concerns from companies as well. how do you address those? >> guest: well, i would say that in some ways senator mccain misses the point in that your good intentions alone respect going to get us to -- aren't going to get us to where we need to be in terms of providing robust cybersecurity and protecting particularly our critical infrastructure. the main difference between the lieberman-collins bill and the mccain bill is that the lieberman-collins bill employs a mechanism whereby you'd have closer coordination between the public and private sector in setting standards, more stronger cybersecurity standards to protect critical infrastructure. they also, the collins-lieberman bill also sets up a mechanism for information sharing whereby the government would be able to share classified information, signatures, if you will, threat

signatures with the private sector, and in return also the private sector could share information, threat information with the government. it's really, it needs to be both ways. right now either through law or through practice it's not possible for that level of information sharing to occur. the mccain bill primarily only focuses on voluntary information sharing. again, an important part of the equation, but it doesn't get us where we really need to be. think about it in this way. everyone would pretty much agree that we have among the safest airlines in the country, and yet, you know, the good intentions of the airlines of wanting to get people safely from point a to point b, that's great that they have good intentions to do that, and i'm sure for the most part they would accomplish that goal. but those good intentions alone clearly don't provide the level of safety and security that the american people demand and require, so, therefore, we have the faa and the ntsb that comes

in and makes sure that we're getting us that much further to having the safest airlines in the country. that's what this is all about in terms of providing better, more robust cybersecurity, protecting particularly our critical infrastructure whether it's our electric grid, our banking system or our telecommunications system among others. >> host: now, congressman langevin, if you would, talk about current legislative action or proposals in the house and where you stand on them. >> guest: sure. well, um, there are a couple of major bills that i'm supporting, one of which is is rogers bill. i sit on the house intelligence committee, chairman rogers of the intelligence committee and ranking member ruinens burg sit on the committee to provide more information between the government and the private sector sharing threat information back and forth. that will has passed almost

unanimously out of the house intelligence committee, i'm hoping that bill will be coming to floor soon. the other bill is congressman lundgren's bill in the homeland security committee that would basically set stronger standards for protecting critical infrastructure as well as providing a mechanism for information sharing. so some important steps forward. we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and whether it's individual pieces of legislation that will move forward or a comprehensive bill like what's been introduced on the senate side, we have to get something done because we're too vulnerable for potential attack. and it's not just from a nation-state that we have to worry about this. these kinds of tools, weapons, if you will, through just a few key strokes could be accomplished by an individual, a terrorrest, a criminal enterprise or a nation-state attack. and be we're very vulnerable. and i don't want to overhype the problem, but clearly the threat exists, and i'm trying to raise

the awareness of this. i look at this as we're probably in right now a pre-9/11 moment, and we have the opportunity to protect our critical infrastructure, protect the american people, but we have to act with the greatest sense of urgency. the last point i'll make is there are other aspects of cyber threats that we're seeing right now. cyber attack is, of course, among the worst things that could happen, and what we're trying to prevent from occurring right now. but the other thing that we're seeing, clearly, on a daily basis is cyber criminal activity and cyber espionage. we probably all know someone who has had their bank account hacked, had money stolen, their credit card money stolen and abused, their identity stolen through electronic means and causing great personal problems on an individual level or more broadly in terms of groups of people having that information stolen or abused. we also see on the cyber espionage side that our companies particularly in the defense industry are getting hacked, penetrated on a daily

basis, and billions of dollars of r&d work is being stolen by our foreign competitors and adversaries that they're scooping up and capitalizing on. they're getting the r&d, basically, for free. that is costing american jobs, it's costing americans our ability to be leaders in in innovation and economic competitors. we're getting a real disadvantaged position right now, and we have to act more quickly to protect this kind of information. >> host: congressman langevin, you mentioned that you are a co-sponsor, a supporter of the rogers cybersecurity bill. if lundgren bill is the vehicle that makes it to the house floor, would you be supportive of that? >> guest: i'm co-sponsoring congressman lundgren's bill. i think he's done a good job in putting together a good bill that gets us further down the road toward employing more robust cybersecurity mechanisms. not a perfect bill by any

stretch, but i think it goes a long way toward establishing the kind of regulation and adoption of robust cybersecurity mechanisms that we need on protecting our critical infrastructures. congressman lundgren recognizes that our electric grid in particular is vulnerable, and the owners and operators of our critical infrastructure particularly in the electric grid sector are not moving fast enough to adopt these kind of tools in many ways because they're puertoing profits over the -- putting profits over the safety and security of the american people, and i think that's wrong. and we're going to press them harder. >> host: what's the timetable that you foresee for action in the house of representatives? >> guest: i'm hoping it's going to happen over the next couple of months, that we would see one or both of those bills, the rogers or the lundgren bill, be brought to the floor. but being in a minority, we don't control the schedule. that'll be up to speaker boehner and his team to decide when those pieces of legislation will be brought up.

i'm looking forward to being supportive and commend both chairman rogers and ranking member roomers berger as well as congressman lundgren for their continued aattention to this issue. most national security experts from the president to the secretary of defense to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff have recognized and stated repeatedly that cybersecurity is among the greatest threats we face today. we've been lucky in many ways, but as the fbi has warned, this is also a real serious problem that they're concerned about, and we need to act with the greatest sense of you urgency. i do believe we're in a pre-9/11 moment right now, and on the other side of it, we're already seeing a great deal of activity among cyber criminals that are preying on vulnerable citizens and companies as well as espionage, cyber espionage that's taking place at the criminal level, at the corporate level and at the nation-state

level that's costing us jobs and economic competitiveness. and and this should be a wake-up call to the american people. >> host: congressman jim langevin, where did you develop your interest in cybersecurity? was it through your work on the intelligence and armed services committees? >> guest: well, that's part of it, but it actually started several years ago going back as far as '06 or '07. i chaired the committee on science and technology, and one of the things we really did a deep dive on was the security or the vulnerability really of our critical infrastructure, especially the electric grid. and we had, basically, the head of nerc come before the subcommittee and ostensibly testify that, yes, that they determined that the electric grid is very secure and, quite frankly, that individual misled congress because they hadn't actually ascertained the information that they said that they did, and they sub keptly

had -- subsequently had to recant their testimony and apologize to the committee. so my work on the homeland security subcommittee is where in many ways it started, but i co-chaired the national security on cyber -- national committee on cybersecurity where we had experts both in and out of government from around the country sit on this commission and help us to develop a blueprint of how best to provide cybersecurity for the country and produced a pretty robust document that helped us to show where we really need to be to make sure we get this right. >> host: do you hear from your constituents on this issue? >> guest: some. in particular companies that are in the i.t. field, in the i.t. sector in the cybersecurity sector that understand how important this issue really is. the other thing that we're also i want to focus our attention on is although this is also a

national security threat, it poses a challenge and an opportunity for us in creating jobs because we don't nearly have enough people in the field of cybersecurity that with the right skills to protect the nation in cyberspace. the director of the cia's center for information technology basically said that we only have about a thousand people that can operate at a world class level in cyberspace. what we really need is somewhere between 20 and 30,000 people. so i've been looking for efforts and have been involved in efforts in trying to get our young people engaged in this problem and get them interested in the field of cybersecurity. we launched a cyber challenge at the high school level that puts the kids that are interested in cyber issues through a series of challenges and tests to test their cybersecurity skills. we recognize them with prizes and awards, and it's the idea of getting them interested in being able to think they just might be

good at something they just do, but to also get them thinking about this as a career field. we've got to work harder on closing the skills gap in i'm sorry t. and cyber -- i.t. and cyber. we have jobs here, but we're finding it a real challenge to find people with the right skills to fill the jobs, so i look at this as a jobs opportunity as well. >> host: congressman jim langevin is a democrat from rhode island, he's a member of the armed services committee where he serves as the top democrat on the emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee. he is also the co-founder of the house cybersecurity caucus. he's been our guest on "the communicators." thank you, congressman. >> guest: thank you. >> "the communicators" also airs each monday night. if you missed my of this program with representative jim langevin and lee terry, you can see "the communicators" again tonight and

each monday night at 8 p.m. eastern here on c-span2. you can also watch "the communicators" anytime online. go to our web site, c-span.org, and click the series tab. from there you can select "the communicators" or any of our other regularly-scheduled programs. c-span.org, your online resource for public affairs programming. starting april 1st, see the winners in this year's c-span's student cam video document program on the theme, "the constitution and you," as middle and high school students from across the country showed which part of the constitution was important to them and why. mornings at 6:50 eastern on c-span, meet the students who created them during "washington journal" each day. cob congratulatelations to -- congratulations to everyone who participated in this year's competition. up next here on c-span2, dr. thomas frieden of th