Congress has set up a new House Homeland Security Committee, a sign of the federal government's increased interest in securing the Internet, MSNBC reports.
The new committee began its life by creating five subcommittees, including one to oversee "cybersecurity, science, research, and development," the tech news site continued.
The HSC "will coordinate all House oversight of the Homeland Security Department in the House of Representatives," said Rep. Christopher Cox (R-California), long a familiar Capitol Hill presence on Internet issues, who chairs the new committee. "It will also exercise exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the Homeland Security Act that established the Federal department tasked with protecting the United States from terrorist attack."
The cybersecurity subcommitte's job will include tending to "protection of government and private networks and computer systems from domestic and foreign attack (and) prevention of injury to civilian populations and physical infrastructure caused by cyberattack," Cox said in a formal presentation.
