Posted by Ilona Trommler
By PAUL BEDARD
Amid
new claims from Republican Donald Trump that the fall election may be
"rigged" against him, the Obama administration is considering taking a
step toward nationalizing the cyber security of the process, according
to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
"We
should carefully consider whether our election system, our election
process, is critical infrastructure like the financial sector, like the
power grid," Johnson told a media breakfast Wednesday.
"There's
a vital national interest in our election process, so I do think we
need to consider whether it should be considered by my department and
others critical infrastructure," he said at the breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
DHS plays a vital security role in 16 areas of
critical infrastructure. DHS describes it this way: "There are 16
critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks,
whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United
States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a
debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national
public health or safety, or any combination thereof."
A White House policy directive adds,
"The federal government also has a responsibility to strengthen the
security and resilience of its own critical infrastructure, for the
continuity of national essential functions, and to organize itself to
partner effectively with and add value to the security and resilience
efforts of critical infrastructure owners and operators."
Johnson
did not identify any current problems with security of the elections,
but did note that there are thousands of localities that conduct
elections differently.
"There's no one federal election system. There are some 9,000 jurisdictions involved in the election process," he said.
"There's
a national election for president, there are some 9,000 jurisdictions
that participate, contribute to collecting votes, tallying votes and
reporting votes," he said.
Without
giving many details of what his department of the administration had in
mind, he did say that in the short term he would likely reach out to
the 9,000 jurisdictions with advice on how to conduct security of the
election.
"I'm
considering communicating with election officials across the country
about best practices in the short term," he said, adding with emphasis,
"soon."
And, he added, there were "longer term investments" coming.
Laura J Alcorn
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