This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, June 6, 2012 - WASHINGTON – Echoing other Senate cybersecurity experts, Sen. Roy Blunt argued Wednesday that alleged White House leaks about a U.S. cyber attack on Iran make this country “more vulnerable” to similar attacks on critical infrastructure such as utilities.
“It would seem to me that the president actually heightened our potential to have a cyber problem by pointing out to the world, through the administration, that ... we’re doing it,” Blunt, R-Mo., told reporters.
Blunt – a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and member of a working group on cybersecurity – joined critics ranging from former GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in questioning the leaks behind a New York Times report that President Barack Obama tried to derail Iran’s nuclear program by secretly ordering cyberattacks.
Asserting that “laws have apparently been broken,” McCain demanded a Senate investigatory hearing into the alleged leaks, and Senate Armed Services chair Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he has agreed to hold a hearing.
Start update: After joining other Intelligence Committee members in a closed-door meeting with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Blunt and several other GOP senators called Thursday for a special counsel to investigate allegations of White House leaks of highly classified information.
"I fully support moving forward with a special prosecutor to conduct an independent investigation immediately so that we can hold the appropriate people accountable,” Blunt said in a statement. End update.
But the White House pushed back, with spokesman Jay Carney telling reporters Wednesday that “any suggestion that this administration has authorized intentional leaks of classified information for political gain is grossly irresponsible.”
Outraged by Carney’s remark, McCain responded that “what is grossly irresponsible is the deliberate leaking and discussion of covert and highly classified programs to launch cyber attacks against Iran’s illicit nuclear program” by administration officials.
Along with two other Intelligence Committee members, Blunt has been “getting senators together ... to talk about the critical issue of cybersecurity.” He said that even though this country has highly sophisticated cyber weapons, “we’re more vulnerable than anybody else because we’re so connected to the cyber world for everything from how our financial structure works to how our utilities work – the critical infrastructures with raised vulnerability.”
While Blunt said he did not object to using cyber attacks to try to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, he told the Senate GOP conference that “my real concern is about the White House doing this chest-beating in a way that makes it much less likely that people will continue to want to be helpful to us” in intelligence gathering.
Referring to the Times article about the cyber attack against Iran, Blunt said: “Why would we tell anybody we were doing that? And why would we tell them ... we gave the same tools to Israel so they could do it? I’m sure Israel wasn’t pleased to hear, read or see that.”
Ironically, the Obama administration reportedly has pursued more prosecutions against current or former government officials for leaking classified information to the media than previous presidential administrations. A Justice Department official told the New York Times in February that the administration's prosecution of such leaks had no political motivation.
“The Justice Department has always taken seriously cases in which government employees and contractors entrusted with classified information are suspected of willfully disclosing such classified information to those not entitled to it,” the official said.
Asked by reporters Wednesday about Senate criticism of alleged administration leaks related to the cyber warfare and secret drone programs, Carney said: “This administration takes all appropriate and necessary steps to prevent leaks of classified information or sensitive information that could risk ongoing counterterrorism or intelligence operations.”
But Feinstein said this week that she was “deeply disturbed by the continuing leaks of classified information to the media, most recently regarding alleged cyber efforts targeting Iran’s nuclear program.”
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., asked Deputy Attorney General James Cole whether “it is a crime to leak classified information on the part of a government employee.” Cole responded: “Without going into all the details, generally, yes, it is.”
In the midst of the controversy over the alleged leaks, Congress has been grappling with how to bolster the nation’s cybersecurity efforts without compromising personal privacy. The House passed its bill six weeks ago, causing a split among conservatives – with some, like Rep. Todd Akin, R-Wildwood, expressing privacy concerns.
Blunt, who has been following both the House and Senate legislative proposals closely, said Wednesday that “we need to have a bill ultimately that properly addresses infrastructure in a way that gets the private sector to do as good a job as the government” does with cybersecurity.
“The government networks are pretty secure. It’s the critical infrastructure networks that we should worry about the most. And the individual communication networks we should worry about the least,” Blunt said.
“Nobody in the government should needlessly be doing anything that impacts anybody’s ability to communicate with each other in any way they want to.”