July 27th, 2009
Delays, delays on White House cyber positions.
Where is the cybersecurity czar? And the White House intellectual property coordinator? The folks for those important federal tech positions have been chosen but there is no sign of announcements being made, NextGov says.
The likely nominees for cyberczar: Howard Schmidt, former White House special adviser for cyberspace security, and Frank Kramer, an assistant Defense secretary under President Bill Clinton. But other names are still being floated: Microsoft Vice President Scott Charney; Obama transition team technology adviser Paul Kurtz; and former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
Davis said he doesn’t want the job and his reasons may have something to do with the delay. He said the job was too ambiguous, what with a reporting structure that leads both to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.
The cyberczar jobs include setting up a framework for interagency collaboration; initiating a national public awareness campaign; developing public-private partnerships; and preparing an incident response plan.
And the Administration has no idea where to put the IP coordinator - Rahm Emanuel has ruled out placement within the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council or National Security Council - that job won’t be filled until a decision is made. Possibilities: The Trade Representative, OMB or the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
OSTP officials previously took pro-tech viewpoints that clashed with the Hollywood crowd, so putting the job there is a nonstarter. OMB isn’t exactly a policy center. The U.S. Trade Representative makes sense, but Congress assigned the coordinator to over see USTR.
