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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

How the executive branch shaped the Cyber Solarium Commission

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Bipartisianship Cyber Security

Comments: 0

 With two weeks until the Cyber Solarium Commission’s report is due for release, members of the panel expect its work will be successful because the most important stakeholders had a seat at the table from the beginning.

From the outset of the commission, which will release 75 cyber policy recommendations on a broad range of topics, the executive branch took an active role. Suzanne Spaulding, one of the commissioners, said at the RSA Conference Feb. 25, that representatives of the executive branch showed up for nearly all the commission meetings and helped guide much of the report, making it easier to actually start work on the recommendations the panel is producing.

“Having the executive branch on there means that they are already informed; they know exactly how we got where we got,” Spaulding said. “It made the decision to not take a blue sky aspirational approach that was not realistic, but instead to focus on what is achievable.”

With many commissions, “their report lands and the executive branch then fans it out and they have to familiarize themselves with it — that takes months,” Spaulding said. “Congress has to get up to speed on it and by the time things start moving, you’ve often come to the end of the administration, and then they start all over again with a new commission.”

Members from both chambers of Congress also sat on the commission. Because of the work with congressmen, the final report will include an annex with “pieces of legislation” that Congress can pass pertaining to cyber issues. According to Spaulding, the members were “very interested in making sure that that things would not just fall on somebody’s desk, but actually be achieved.”

Chris Inglis, who sits on the commission, said that the executive branch participants were very helpful in informing some of the legislative recommendations, such as how the legislative branch could improve oversight of the executive branch on cyber issues.

The final report, due out March 11, will include recommendations for federal agencies can better partner both together and with the private sector, how the federal government can better work with allies overseas, and how to approach cybersecurity committee jurisdictions in Congress, according to Frank Cilluffo, another solarium commissioner.

The group also will come out with a series of recommendations on how to increase “synchronization” between the FBI, NSA, DoD and DHS, Cilluffo said.

 

Photo: The Cyber Solarium Commission report is due out March 11. (Chainarong Prasertthai)

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