WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called on the Bush administration yesterday to delay the planned launch of a multi- billion-dollar cybersecurity initiative so that Congress could have time to evaluate it.
Rep. Bennie Thompson said he wants to make sure the new program is legal before it is launched. In an interview, the Mississippi Democrat said he had been told that President Bush might unveil the initiative as early as next week.
Known internally as the "Cyber Initiative," the program is designed to use the spying capabilities of the National Security Agency and other agencies to protect government and private communications networks from infiltration by terrorists and hackers. The Sun reported the existence of the program last month, but Thompson said the administration has refused to discuss the initiative with members of his committee, despite repeated requests.
In a letter this week to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Thompson demanded that his committee receive a briefing on details of the plan. He also warned that the "centralization of power" envisioned under the initiative raised "significant questions" that should be answered before the program is launched.
Thompson - whose panel oversees the Homeland Security Department, which would run the initiative - said he was unaware of the program's existence until it was revealed by The Sun in a Sept. 20 article.
A Homeland Security spokeswoman said Chertoff had received Thompson's letter, which was dated Monday, and would respond "in a timely fashion."
"We do agree that cybersecurity is a very important issue, and that is why since the beginning of this congressional session DHS has provided more than a half a dozen briefings to the House Homeland Security Committee on cyberthreats and related issues," said the spokeswoman, Laura Keehner.
Thompson said that if the administration continues to give his panel the silent treatment, he will consider issuing a congressional subpoena.
"You have to put sunshine on a program so sensitive as this," he said. The administration is saying that "'you have to believe us.' Obviously, as a nation of laws, we can't accept that."
Thompson said that because the program involves the NSA and similar agencies, questions about privacy and domestic surveillance would be of particular concern.
"What's the legal framework about which civil rights and civil liberties, as well as constitutional issues, will be protected?" he asked.
The Cyber Initiative is the second administration program in recent weeks to draw criticism from Congress after it was revealed in a news report. Last month, after a report in The Wall Street Journal, the administration was forced to put a new domestic satellite surveillance program on hold in response to congressional protests.
Few details about the Cyber Initiative are known because the administration has been extremely secretive about the program, much of which is highly classified. Current and former security officials have spoken about the initiative on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced.
The multiagency effort is being coordinated by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, a former NSA director.
Since last year, there have been a series of meetings among representatives from McConnell's office, the NSA, Homeland Security and the White House, said a senior intelligence official. And at the NSA, several dozen people, including members of the general counsel's office, have been working on the initiative for the past year, the official said.
Plans call for a seven-year, multi-billion-dollar effort with as many as 1,000 or more employees from Homeland Security, the NSA and other agencies, according to current and former government officials familiar with the initiative.
The first phase would be a system to protect government networks from cyberattacks, with a later phase designed to protect private networks that control such systems as communications, nuclear power plants and electric-power grids, said a former government official familiar with the proposal.
The NSA's new domestic role would require a revision of the agency's charter, according to the senior intelligence official. In the past, the NSA's cyberdefense efforts have been focused on the government's classified networks.
Officials have debated internally whether to locate these employees in one facility in the Washington area or in multiple posts around the country, the senior intelligence official said.
They have also discussed different ways to structure the program, said a former Pentagon official familiar with the initiative. Options include: creating a special office similar to the government response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik; a White House coordination group modeled on the drug czar's office; and a "virtual" organization that coordinates activities among various agencies.
Seeking details, Thompson has made four separate pleas for briefings from Homeland Security, he said, including a direct request at a hearing last week to the department's top cybersecurity official, Greg Garcia.
Thompson said the House Intelligence Committee also had not received a briefing it requested from McConnell's office, but an Intelligence Committee aide said yesterday that the panel expects a "detailed briefing" this week.
Intelligence Chairman Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat, has requested information, the aide said, on exactly what the initiative would do "and what the legal authorities are."
Thompson rattled off about a dozen questions he has about the program, including what authority the NSA has to participate in domestic monitoring and whether Fourth Amendment limitations on search and seizure would prevent the government from using the evidence it gathered to prosecute cybercrimes.
Questions about what each agency will be authorized to do have come under considerable discussion inside the administration, said current and former officials. Approval of the initiative was delayed because of continued difficulty with such issues.
The federal government's role in monitoring private-sector networks is "clearly the issue," the former government official said, adding, "If you want to work with them and put things on people's lines to monitor stuff, the general counsels of private-sector entities would say, 'You want to do what?'"
Policymakers have become increasingly alarmed at the vulnerability of trains, nuclear power plants, electrical grids and other key infrastructure systems, which rely on Internet-based controls that could be hijacked remotely to produce a catastrophic attack.
Recent attempted attacks on Pentagon and other government computer systems have heightened concerns about holes in government networks, as well.
Thompson noted that he has held several hearings on the emerging cyberthreat, as well as on Homeland Security's challenges in managing its own cybersecurity.
"We have tried to work with the department," Thompson said.
siobhan.gorman@baltsun.com