Montana Senator Steve Daines brought the issue of cyber security up in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor this week.

Daines focused on the recent data theft by Chinese hackers that managed to break into the Office of Personnel Management servers and tap into the personal information of 20 million federal employees.

"So many congressmen wanted me to regulate the private sector to protect the private sector from cyber threats." Daines said. "In 28 years of serving in the private sector, I never once had information breached, I never once had a letter from my HR department saying my information has been compromised. It wasn't until I became a federal employee, elected to congress a few years ago that my information had been compromised."

Daines criticized the current $4.5 billion National Cybersecurity and Protection System, saying that its central programming, called Einstein, was not up to the task of defending sensitive U.S. data.

“But this isn't just a problem about being sloppy or being slow," Daines said. "This is a problem this is a matter of national security. America needs to get smart on cybersecurity and tech issues and to hold officials accountable for their behavior. There's just too much at stake if we fail. The American people will pay the price for a failure to adapt to this rapidly changing world of technology, this rapidly changing world of media, this rapidly changing world of information gathering  for sheer carelessness of those in authority."

"The private sector innovation and progress can help America compete. As a member of the Commerce Committee and having spent 28 years in the private sector, the last 12 years with a cloud computing start-up that we took public became a great cloud computing company with offices all over the world based in my home state of Montana. I admit I had to smile when I saw that so many Congressmen that want to regulate the private sector to protect the private sector from cyber threats."

So far, the OPM data breach has already led to the resignation of Director Katherine Archuleta, an Obama administration appointee who took over the department in 2013.

Check out the full speech here:

 

 

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