The United States government does not care about cybersecurity!
Yes, that’s a harsh statement. I wish it wasn’t true. As an American citizen, it actually breaks my heart. I hope in 6, 9, or 12 months, that it won’t be true. But unfortunately today, Senators, the White House, and Congress are just not concerned about protecting American cybersecurity.
They are doing absolutely nothing about it. They are pointing fingers. They are blaming others.
After the Marriott breach, where five hundred million records were compromised, United States senators actually had the nerve to come on the media saying, “Yes, this is unacceptable. Something needs to be done about it. They need to be punished.” One senator actually said, “We should be jailing and fining these people. This is unacceptable behavior. There should be laws.”
That’s your job!
That’s like me bringing my car to the mechanic telling them to fix my car and give it a tune up and then when I drive away and the car’s broken and I go back to the mechanic, he says, “You know something, you should really find a good mechanic. You should really get a tune up.”. That’s crazy!
We would never accept that in the real world, so why are we letting these senators get off the hook?
Congress does not have the right to sit on the sidelines when a breach occurs and blame those companies. Their hands are bloody. This is on our government.
For over four years, cyber security has been the number two or three priority for the United States government. Problem number one always gets too much attention. Number one always gets the focus. That’s the issue. When are we going to make cybersecurity the number one problem?
How many more American citizens have to get hurt?
How many more people have to get their identity stolen? How many hard working people have to get their retirement compromised? How many veterans have to get their accounts wiped out before we make this a priority?
I want to start calling out the people that need to fix this problem. We need to unite forces.
American citizens are amazing at driving change. We protest when things are not being done. Why aren’t there any protests on Washington about cybersecurity? Why wasn’t there any protest on Washington after the Marriott breach? Seriously?!? Five hundred million records were stolen and we don’t care. That doesn’t bother you? We should all (including myself) be jumping in our cars, driving down to D.C., and protesting just like everything else.
We protest a lot of good causes. Many people protested when there was going to be a new Supreme Court justice that they didn’t agree with. But why won’t we protest when companies are not protecting our information?
We need to stand up.
We need to unite and put pressure on our congressmen, the White House, and Capitol Hill to start passing laws to protect us.
And guess what?
There is precedence. The European Union recognized the important to protect their citizens.
Digital records and multiple years have worked on GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). That actually passed in May, 2018.
So the EU has stepped up to protect their citizens.
Why isn’t the United States government doing the same thing?
Let’s put politics aside. If we can’t figure it out, why don’t we just adopt GDPR? It’s not perfect but it’s a heck of a lot better than what we have today.
Other countries have set precedents and it’s time for the United States government to stop arguing about stupid things. Democrats and Republicans need to unite and start passing real cybersecurity laws that protect our citizens.
Because guess what? After 2018, enough is enough.
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