[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14319-14320]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CYBER SECURITY

  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, this generation is at the forefront of 
technological advances. In fact, it is making the United States and 
this generation that lives here one of the best networked in history, 
in fact, not only here but around the world.
  The need for new and better technology to accommodate such a 
generation has also left a gaping hole in the security of our country. 
In recent years, cyber security attacks and breaches have multiplied 
and left American citizens incredibly vulnerable. Make no mistake, the 
cyber security of the United States is in great danger. But, 
unfortunately, proper precautions and reforms needed to set a better 
course have yet to be taken.
  Just look at last week's headlines. USA Today recently reported 
hackers have attempted to compromise the Department of Energy over 
1,100 times
between 2010 and 2014, and these attackers have been successful over 
150 times.
  In a 2013 breach these attackers gained access to the information of 
over 104,000 Energy Department employees. After these attacks, the 
auditors noted ``unclear lines of responsibility'' and ``lack of 
awareness by responsible officials.'' Yet nothing was done to mitigate 
the potential for future attacks.
  Our government needs to stop being content with simply being reactive 
to serious cyber threats. There are no deterrents or consequences to 
these foreign attackers. Not one person at the Department of Energy has 
faced consequences. The CIO of the Office of Personnel Management, or 
OPM, remains in charge after one of the largest hacks on Federal 
employees.
  In an age ruled by technology, it is our responsibility to make sure 
we take the necessary steps to protect the information of the American 
people.
  This past Monday I held the first biannual Montana High Tech Jobs 
Summit in my hometown of Bozeman at my alma mater, Montana State 
University. We had over 600 Montanans attend.
  We need to be more disruptive of the status quo in the technology 
sector, rather than passively sitting by as other nations innovate and 
leave us behind. We need to encourage STEM education in our classrooms 
and bring more people into the science and technology sector.
  In my home State of Montana, high-tech jobs are growing 10 times 
faster than the statewide job growth rate. Last year alone, 40 percent 
of the wage growth in our entire State took place in Gallatin County, 
the county where Bozeman is located, and it has become a hub of 
technology. Yet too often Montana kids have to leave to find work. We 
need more high-paying technology jobs in Montana.
  During my time at the cloud computing company RightNow Technologies, 
which was founded, started up, and grew to a company that was acquired 
by Oracle for $1.8 billion, over the 12 years I was there, I saw 
firsthand how Montana is becoming a leading hub for innovation and 
high-tech job growth. Montana has a qualified workforce and an 
unparalleled quality of life that makes our State a wise investment for 
tech companies. In fact, where the campus of our software company is 
located in Bozeman we are just minutes away from the Gallatin River. 
The Gallatin River is where the movie ``A River Runs Through It'' was 
filmed, where Brad Pitt made his debut, and directed by Robert Redford.
  This tech summit showcased the great work done in our State, a State 
where we can combine the quality of life of fishing, hunting, 
backpacking, mountain climbing, spending time with family outdoors with 
technology and create a world-class high-tech company, because 
millennials want to have that quality of life, but they also want to 
have a world-class career in building global companies.
  This tech summit allowed our Nation's tech leaders to share their 
views and experiences and encouraged our future tech leaders to lead. 
It provided a unique opportunity for our State's tech and business 
leaders to learn from one another. We had a great slate of speakers and 
panelists from across the technology industry: Laef Olson, the senior 
VP for cloud operations at Oracle; Dr. Dava Newman, a Montana native 
and the new Deputy Administrator at NASA. We had two of the five FCC 
Commissioners, Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly. We had Doug Burgum, the 
former CEO and chairman of Great Plains Software. Great Plains Software 
was started up in North Dakota. He grew that company. It was acquired 
by Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion, the largest acquisition at that 
time for Microsoft. Now Doug is cofounder and partner of Arthur 
Ventures and chairman of the Kilbourne Group. We had Craig Barrett. Dr. 
Craig Barrett received his undergrad, master's, and Ph.D. at Stanford 
and was a professor at Stanford for 10 years in metallurgical 
engineering and then went to this small company in 1974 called Intel. 
There, he rose all the way to CEO, and in fact, worked with Gordon 
Moore, who became CEO of Intel and who is famous for Moore's law.
  Mike Goguen, the managing director of Sequoia Capital, a company that 
was an early initial investor in companies such as Google, YouTube, 
Apple, PayPal. We had Will Lansing, a former board member of RightNow 
Technologies who is now the CEO of FICO. We had Matt Rose, the BNSF 
Railway executive chairman.
  We had panelists as well who explored issues of critical importance 
to our technology sector, cyber security infrastructure, and our 
economy. All convened in Bozeman on Monday. One

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doesn't think of the Gallatin Valley as being a hub of technology--
maybe the Silicon Valley--but as the world is changing, as technology 
removes geography as a constraint, you have a quality of life that is 
exceptional, where you are an hour away from Yellowstone National Park 
and can grow world-class tech companies there.
  We heard from cyber security professionals from Microsoft and 
Facebook that we need not only to run faster, technically speaking, but 
work together between the private and public sectors to fend off 
potential hackers.
  We heard how technology is removing geography as a constraint. We 
heard how companies are adopting innovative cyber security practices to 
keep information safe while maintaining global competitiveness. We 
learned about the importance of maintaining and advancing our 
technology infrastructure and the factors that affect start-up 
companies willing to grow, attract investments, and create jobs.
  We have great technology leaders moving our country forward and 
working to protect our country, but we need to run faster than those 
seeking to destroy us. We need to ensure that we don't have burdensome 
regulations facing our entrepreneurs and our companies. We need to 
continue to encourage policies that drive innovation.
  I yield the floor.

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