On the Missing Commerce Computers

It should not have taken a request from Congress for this information to reach the light of day.

The American people deserve better from their government.  If we’re going to ask and sometimes demand information from the public, we owe them a better way of knowing when that information goes missing.  And a far better way of securing that information in the first place.

The sad reality is, we are incapable of storing, moving, accessing and securing information.  We spend tens of billions of dollars a year on information technology.  You’d think we could secure information by now. But we are still an analog government in a digital economy and culture. It’s time for that to change, before people lose confidence entirely in our ability to protect them.

Rep. Tom Davis is chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.