Internet Crime: Seemingly Not an Obama, Reed, Pelosi Priority?
Criminal use of the Internet continues at an unabated rate. McAfee surveyed businesses globally and has concluded that lost intellectual property and expenditures for repairs due to cybercrime have cost business $1 trillion last year. We all recently have learned what a trillion dollars means. It’s an important amount to the responsible business community, but means little to our government and the Federal Reserve as well as the mismanaged companies they have determined to support
Cybercrime has increased yearly with,as yet, no effective response by government agencies. Homeland Security has funded studies and various initiatives with few significant results. The FBI remains the primary federal law enforcement agency and has teams of scientists working on the problem. Some of those efforts have interesting prospects for defeating the rampant criminal and terrorist use of the Internet. President Obama has not indicated this as a priority in the structuring of his administration. The FBI correctly remains independent and Homeland Security seems to only willing to give cursory lip service to inter-agency cooperation initiatives.
The continued lack of government recognition that private sector cooperation is needed for any meaningful solution to emerge concerning this Internet crime wave is frustrating. It seems that Obamas’ people have even less understanding of the need for private involvement in finding solutions than the previous administration The Internet remains essentially a private sector phenomenon, in growth and use. It originated as a government, academia, Defense Dept. tool in it’s early years. When the private sector became heavily involved in the early 90’s the expanded use was created in all the areas we now use commercially. The commercial expansion continues and the criminal abuses expand with it. Law enforcement and the private sector have not joined forces to address the problem.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed as their recognition of Internet importance have recently proudly announced that the House and Senate activities will become more transparent by the introduction of You Tube recording their activities . We’ll see! Many politicians announced a new availability to the public during the campaign season through the use of Twitter I’ve just checked the Twitter accounts of my Senators and several area representatives. That transparent availability seems to have vanished about mid-November with their Twitter accounts becoming dormant. I wonder what happened in November?
The Internet is one of the most important engines of commerce. The new administration seems to lack understanding in the importance of supporting those agencies capable of working with the private sector to find means of dealing with the largest crime wave in America’s history. I wonder if there is a possibility that we now have elected a “one trick pony” government, only capable of devising a hostile attack on American business while continuing to blame the past for their failure to stem the tide of recession.
Handing giant sums of our money to mismanaged business is the apparent primary domestic skill set of the Obama administration. An interest in working with the private sector and existing law enforcement efforts in defeating the criminal and terrorist use of the Internet has not yet surfaced in this administration.
Maybe Al Gore can take some time from solving the global warming problem to helping with Internet crime. He did invent the Internet. Didn’t he?
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
“While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children,” said Sen. John Cornyn, (R-Texas), who introduced the Senate version.
Regarding the Internet SAFETY Act 2009 in the House and Senate last week.