 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
Senate Counsel Jumps To Cyber World
by Bara Vaida
Beryl Howell, the senior counsel to Sen. Patrick Leahy for the past 10 years, has left Capitol Hill to join Stroz Associates, a New York-based cyber-security firm. Howell was the lead negotiator between the Senate and White House as it drafted the 2001 anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act.
In her new position as managing director and general counsel at the firm, Howell will open and run its Washington office and provide strategic and legislative advice on computer crime and privacy problems. She is an expert on the FBI, Freedom of Information Act and privacy matters, and before joining the staff of Leahy, D-Vt., was a prosecutor.
Stroz specializes in helping companies investigate hacking, piracy and other computer crimes, and recover evidence from computer hard drives and cyber media for use in litigation.
Elsewhere on the Hill, House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., has named Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., to head the panel's Environment, Technology and Standards Subcommittee and Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., to chair the Research Subcommittee. Ehlers is a physicist by training and a long-time advocate of math and science education and federal investments in science and technology.
New Job, Same Battles
Ronald Dick has only been on the job at Computer Sciences Corp. for two weeks and already is strategizing on how the firm can help solve some of the problems Dick faced while he headed the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC).
In particular, Dick, who is now CSC's director of information assurance strategic initiatives, said NIPC lacks the resources to gather, secure and analyze the vast amount of information it receives from the owners and operators of the Internet in order to make policy decisions. He hopes now that the center is part of the Homeland Security Department that it receives adequate resources.
"There is a lot of information that the Homeland Security Department is entitled to ... from the FBI, CIA and the private sector ... and that is an overwhelming amount of information ... to secure it and analyze it to ... be assimilated into meaningful information for decision makers," said Dick, who spent 25 years at the FBI and the last two as NIPC director.
He said he is proud of the agency's efforts over the past couple of years to build a relationship between the public and private sectors through information-sharing and analysis centers and the Infraguard information-sharing program. "When I first started, there was a perception that the private sector wouldn't share information at all," he said.
As to why Dick decided not to join Homeland Security, he said, "some of it is personal. I was eligible to retire ... and frankly, I had done as much as I could in terms of integration [of the NIPC and the new agency] ...and in the totality, it was just time for me to move on."
Nominations Of The Week
President Bush last week said he intends to designate Eduardo Aguierre as acting director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service at the Homeland Security Department.
Aguierre is currently the vice chairman and first vice president of the Export-Import Bank. He previously worked for Bank of America for 24 years and was named "one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the nation" by Hispanic Business Magazine for three consecutive years. The new bureau in the department is tasked with immigration services.
Bush also nominated Jeffrey Shane to be the department's transportation undersecretary for policy. Shane is currently the associate deputy Transportation secretary at the Transportation Department. He serves as that department's principal policy adviser and as the director of its Office of Intermodalism. Before his appointment at Transportation in March 2002, Shane was a partner at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. Earlier in his career, he served both as deputy assistant secretary and assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at Transportation.
The president intends to nominate Stephen Cambone as Defense undersecretary for intelligence. Cambone currently serves at Defense as special assistant to the secretary and director for program analysis and evaluation. Before that, he was the principal deputy Defense under secretary for policy. And earlier in his career, Cambone served as research director at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, and as a senior fellow for political-military studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
And Bush said he intends to appoint Richard Parsons, the CEO of AOL Time Warner, as a member of the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation, a new council to promote volunteer service and civic participation by individuals, schools and organizations. Parsons attended the University of Hawaii and received his law degree from Albany Law School.
Treasury Taps Infrastructure Expert
The Treasury Department has named Michael Dawson to the newly created position of deputy assistant secretary for critical infrastructure protection and compliance policy.
In the position, Dawson will oversee efforts to enforce statutes and regulations within the financial sector, including those against money laundering, terrorist financing and identity theft. He also will guide the office as it continues to develop and implement policies on sharing information among financial institutions and the private and public sectors, including personal financial information and suspicious information as identified under the Bank Secrecy Act.
Previously, Dawson was the senior adviser to the deputy Treasury secretary and chief of staff at Foliofn, an Internet-based broker dealer.
Software Alliance Hires Cyber-Security Expert
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has retained Mark Holman, who recently served as deputy assistant to the president at the White House Office of Homeland Security, to provide strategic counsel on cyber-security policies. Holman currently works for Blank Rome as a member of the firm's government relations staff.
Before working at the White House, Holman was chief of staff to then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, now the head of the Homeland Security Department. Holman will join forces with a BSA security policy team that includes Mario Correa, BSA's director of Internet and network security policy, and several cyber-security specialists at the law firm of Preston Gates.
TechNet Begins 2003 Fundraising Year
As the Presidents Day congressional recess approaches, several members of Congress are expected to attend events hosted by the bipartisan lobbying group TechNet.
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., is scheduled to attend a Feb. 18 luncheon at Hewlett-Packard's offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees funding for the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development departments, as well as other federal agencies, is scheduled to attend a fundraising lunch in Menlo Park, Calif., on Feb. 19. The annual VA-HUD bill contains funding for the National Science Foundation.
House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., also is expected to attend a fundraising breakfast Feb. 21 in Menlo Park, according to TechNet's events calendar.
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
