Cybersecurity was noticeably absent from the main Republican presidential debate Wednesday night.
After receiving minor references in the first two debates, the topic was nowhere to be found in the third tilt, despite the Senate finally passing a long-stalled cybersecurity bill on Tuesday night.
{mosads}All four Republican senators running for president even skipped out on the final day of debate on the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA), meant to boost the exchange of data on hackers between businesses and the government.
With three Republican debates and one Democratic bout now completed, cybersecurity has been almost absent across the board on the presidential primary debate stage.
The topic did get a brief mention during Wednesday’s warmup debate with the lower-polling GOP candidates.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki (R) went after President Obama for a “completely lax, to say the least” approach to thwarting cyberattacks from countries like North Korea and China.
“What I would do is put in place a policy where if we know a company, say a Chinese company, is hacking into American companies, stealing trade secrets, as we know they do every day, we will retaliate against that company and say that that company is not going to be allowed to continue to do trade with the United States,” Pataki said.
Obama essentially gave his administration this type of power earlier in the year. In early April, the president signed an executive order that would allow the administration to levy sanctions against any foreign entity — government agencies, private companies, or individuals — caught conducting or benefiting from cyberattacks and digital theft.
But the White House has yet to break out its new bargaining chip.
In the weeks leading up to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit, the White House nearly slapped fines on prominent Chinese companies that had profited from economic espionage.
But the sanctions were put on hold after Beijing agreed to a “common understanding” during Xi’s visit that neither country would engage in corporate hacking.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) jumped in on the topic Wednesday night, arguing that China’s hacking stems from Obama’s feckless leadership abroad. It’s a point he made aggressively in the wake of the hacks at the Office of Personnel Management, which the administration has privately blamed on China.
“Here’s the problem,” Graham said. “We’re being walked all over because our commander in chief is weak in the eyes of our enemies.
“Why are the Chinese stealing our intellectual property, hacking into our system?” he asked. “Why are they building islands over resource-rich waters? Because they can get away with it.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who is polling significantly higher than Graham, made a similar argument in the first prime-time GOP debate when asked about reports that Russian hackers had infiltrated the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff unclassified email system.
Cruz called the digital assault a “consequence” of the Obama administration’s inability to stand up to its overseas enemies. The feeble approach has allowed both Russia and China to wage “cyber warfare” on the U.S. with few repercussions, Cruz said.
“Leading from behind is a disaster,” he said.