Review - HR 9768 Introduced – Cyber Defense Collaborative

Last month, Rep Swalwell (D,CA) introduced HR 9768, the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative Act. The bill would amend 6 USC 665b to replace the existing CISA Joint Cyber Planning Office with a new ‘Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative’ program designed to “support enhanced public-private partnerships across critical infrastructure sectors for collective cyber defense operations, information sharing, and operational collaboration”. No new funding would be authorized by this legislation.

Moving Forward

Swalwell and his sole cosponsor {Rep Thompson (D,MS)} are both members of the House Homeland Security Committee and Thompson is the ranking member. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. While I see no single-provision that would engender specific opposition to this bill, I suspect that many Republicans will be uncomfortable with this level on interaction between businesses and CISA. I think that this may be too late in the session for compromises to be worked out that would ease those concerns.

 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-9768-introduced - subscription required.