GOP senators urge Obama to blame China

Two Republican senators want the Obama administration to publicly blame China for the recent cyberattacks that have roiled the government.

Government officials have called China the “leading suspect” in the damaging hacks that compromised more than 22 million people’s sensitive information, but not made any public accusations.

{mosads}“If there is no penalty, not even public identification, of the perpetrator of a cyberattack, it seems to me that it only encourages future cyberattacks from the same actors,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), during a Wednesday press conference with reporters.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) agreed. The two were together to introduce a bill that would strengthen the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber authority.

“It would be important,” Ayotte said, “for the president to be very direct with the Chinese publicly about this.”

Their comments came as reports surfaced Wednesday that the White House has decided not to publicly point the finger at anyone for the attack.

Experts publicly, and government officials privately, have laid blame squarely on China for the bruising cyber assault. They believe it’s part of a cyber espionage scheme to establish a database U.S. government workers.

Such information could be used to stage future cyberattacks, imitate officials, blackmail workers or even recruit informants.

“If they can get away scot-free and not even be named as the perpetrator of the cyber hack, then what is there [stopping] a nation state, a terrorist group, an international criminal gang or a hacktivist to not just perform the same kind of intrusion again?” Collins asked.

Cyber policy experts believe the U.S. is reluctant to expose intelligence it may have gathered while investigating the incident.

The administration also wants to maintain its tense relationship with Beijing ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s fall visit to Washington.

Ayotte said the meetings are an ideal venue for President Obama to take a stand against China’s digital offensive.

“This is going to take a leader-to-leader direct discussion on this issue,” she said. “I think there should be some public calling out of the Chinese on this.”

The “name and shame” strategy thwarts potential hackers, Collins added.

“I think there is a lot of deterrence value in showing that you know who the adversary is,” she said.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), another co-sponsor of the bill introduced at the press conference, preached caution.

“There’s an active investigation going on right now,” he said. “Both in the nature of tracing back and discovering means and methodologies. I have faith in the quality of the investigation and I believe at the appropriate time there is truly ‘validatable’ information, that will be shared.”