On November 15, the U.S. Senate declined to approve S. 3414, the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, introduced by senators Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), and supported by the Obama administration. The proposed legislation would have set voluntary cybersecurity standards for owners of the nation’s critical infrastructure, such as gas pipelines, utilities and banks. The bill also would have authorized companies and the government to share information about online threats. Most supported the information-sharing provisions of the proposed legislation, but many businesses were concerned that even voluntary standards could impose new liabilities upon them and that the act did not provide adequate liability protection to address those risks.
In the absence of cybersecurity legislation, the Obama administration now is considering taking action through an executive order. Making a final plea for S. 3414, Lieberman argued that an order would be of grave consequence to businesses: “[An executive order] will not be able to offer the private-sector owners the liability protection our bill offers for voluntarily adopting cybersecurity practices developed jointly by the private sector and the government. Without such protections, the private sector will be exposed to substantial liability once the Executive Branch begins to promulgate industry-wide standards.”
