Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20027837-501465.html

January 7, 2011 4:31 PM
Obama Eyeing Internet ID for Americans
This story originally appeared on CNET

STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S.  
Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort  
to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said  
here today.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize  
efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet,  
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.


That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department  
to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates  
including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland  
Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil  
liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual  
roles of police and intelligence agencies.


The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for  
Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and  
Schmidt spoke.


The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the  
National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke  
said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An  
early version was publicly released last summer.)


"We are not talking about a national ID card," Locke said at the  
Stanford event. "We are not talking about a government-controlled  
system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and  
privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize  
a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital  
identities."


The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office  
to work on this project, Locke said.


Details about the "trusted identity" project are unusually scarce.  
Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card  
or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they  
say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by  
online vendors for financial transactions.


Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain  
possible on the Internet. "I don't have to get a credential if I don't  
want to," he said. There's no chance that "a centralized database will  
emerge," and "we need the private sector to lead the implementation of  
this," he said.


Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have  
exited ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the  
Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years  
ago. Three years ago, proposals were were circulating in Washington to  
transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S.  
Defense Department.


In March 2009, Rod Beckstrom, director of Homeland Security's National  
Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare  
public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and  
cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA  
"effectively controls DHS cyber efforts through detailees, technology  
insertions," and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's  
Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot