SPOT: “Congress at Rest”
The Do-Nothing Congress of 2019
A contributory factor to the overall problem in the nation’s cybersecurity posture is the lack of legislative action by the U.S. federal government for the past decade.
What ever your political bent, this should the real call for bi-partisanship.
Congress to keep pace with the technological and policy needs of a continually changing cyber-threat landscape has been unable to move needed laws to the president for signature. This lack of prioritization suggests an absence of commitment to the cybersecurity problem. The U.S. Congress has failed to pass any meaningful legislation in the area of cybersecurity for many years. It has contributed to the nation’s lack of response to evolving cyber-threats that might be better responded to by the numerous U.S. cybersecurity bills stalled in Congress .
Sadly, the European Union (E.U.) has been far more effective in addressing the issues of data security and privacy than what the U.S. Congress has been able to accomplish to-date to include for example California’s Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) and the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Of the 1199 cybersecurity-focused legislative bills under consideration as of December 2019 by the U.S. Congress, only 87 have been placed into law over the past decade (Congress.gov, n.d.). In other words, Congress has only moved 7% of active cybersecurity protection legislation measures to law since 2009, see Table 1.
Table 1
Current and Past Cybersecurity Legislation for the United States (2009-2019)
Heading Number Subset
All cybersecurity legislation 1199
House 802
Senate 397
Bill Type
Bills 1064
Resolutions 62
Amendments 61
Concurrent Resolutions 9
Joint Resolutions 3
Status of Legislation
Introduced 1138
Committee Consideration 371
Floor Consideration 319
Resolving differences 77
To President 88
Veto 1
Became Law 87
Note. Adapted from database extract of Congress.gov (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2019.
Further, there was only one bill that has progressed to a congressional committee for consideration in 2019. As suggested by the available data specific to existing federal legislative action or inaction, it underscores a severe shortfall by the U.S. Congress to affect any real change in the area of cybersecurity defense to include the incorporation of data science tools and mechanisms.
Can the U.S. Do Better?
