GOP: No backup plan if cyber fails as defense add-on

Republicans have no backup plan for moving a cybersecurity bill if Democrats block the GOP’s attempts to attach it to the Defense authorization bill.

“We have a plan A and a plan B,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters. “Our plan B is plan A.”

{mosads}Republican leaders insisted Thursday that Democrats would not stymie an attempt to add a cybersecurity bill to the defense measure, even as Democrats maintain they have the votes to do so.

“Listen, I have a hard time believing people are going to block a cyber bill given that we just went through an attack,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) told reporters, referring to the recent digital theft of 4 million federal workers’ records.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to move the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) up in the congressional queue by adding it on to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The cyber bill would enhance the exchange of hacking information between the private sector and the government. 

The measure has enjoyed bipartisan support, but Democrats are objecting to moving it as an NDAA add-on, which would prevent them from adding privacy-enhancing amendments. 

Civil liberties advocates have maintained that the bill as written would simply shuttle more sensitive data to intelligence agencies.