[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 7 (Monday, February 21, 2000)]
[Pages 308-310]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Technology Industry Leaders and Computer 
Security Experts and an Exchange With Reporters

February 15, 2000

Internet Security

    The President. The room is smaller than it looks on television. 
[Laughter] Usually I don't get so many of them coming in, except you 
guys are--[laughter].
    Well, first of all, I want to welcome the leaders of the high-tech 
industry and experts on computer security to this meeting at the White 
House to talk about how to maximize the promise and minimize the risks 
to the Internet.
    The disruptions at several websites last week highlight how 
important the Internet has become to our whole way of life in America 
and how vulnerabilities at one place on the net can create risks for 
all. Our administration has been working for years now to reduce 
vulnerabilities in Government computers and to encourage the private 
sector to do more.
    We know that we have to keep cyberspace open and free. We have to 
make, at the same time, computer networks more secure and resilient, and 
we have to do more to protect privacy and civil liberties. And we're 
here to work together.
    Last month I released a draft plan to help do our part to meet these 
challenges. And in the budget, I asked Congress for $2 billion for 
cybersecurity to safeguard Government networks, to detect attacks, to 
hire and train more security experts, to increase cooperation with the 
private sector. I want to jump-start this effort by providing $9 million 
right away to begin some of these key initiatives. And so we'll do what 
we can.
    I understand that many leading industry members, including the 
companies represented here today, have agreed to create a mechanism to 
share cybersecurity information, and I applaud that. I am asking 
Secretary Daley and my Science Adviser, Dr. Neal Lane, and Richard 
Clarke from the White House, to work with these companies to accelerate 
our efforts with the private sector.
    Now, having said that and before we open the floor for questions, 
I'd like to ask Peter Solvik, who is to my right, the senior vice 
president and chief information officer of Cisco Systems, to say a few 
words on behalf of the private sector people who are here today.
    Peter.

[At this point, Mr. Solvik made brief remarks.]

    The President. Thank you.
    Q. Mr. President, is there such a thing as a plan to actually secure 
the Internet?
    The President. Secretary Daley says there is. [Laughter] Let me say, 
what we're going to try to do today is to talk about what the 
Government's responsibility is for our own systems and networks, what 
the private sector's responsibility is, and as I said before, how to 
talk about having adequate security, how to protect privacy and civil 
liberties, but also how to keep the Internet open.

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    And keep in mind, one of the reasons this thing has worked so well 
is that it has been free of Government regulation. The only contribution 
the Government made to the Internet was the early research over 30 years 
ago, now, I guess, is when it started--'69. And there may be more work 
for us to do in research here. But I think that, insofar as we can, we 
ought to stay with what brought us here.
    The companies and the sector they represent in this room are about 8 
percent of our employment. They do represent, as Peter said, over 30 
percent of our growth. And so the trick is going to be how to do what 
needs to be done on security and privacy and still keep it flourishing 
and growing.
    But we ought to approach this with determination, and we shouldn't 
be surprised that these things have happened. It's just a replay of what 
has always happened whenever there's a new way of communicating, a new 
way of making money throughout human society; there's always going to be 
somebody that tries to take advantage of it. And we'll figure out how to 
deal with it and go on.
    Q. Mr. President, one issue involved here is the sharing of 
information, and there are some reports this morning that banks were 
conscious of efforts to disable their systems but did not share that 
information more broadly. Can the Government solve that without forcing 
industry or business to disclose information it would rather keep 
private?
    The President. I think--let me tell you what I know about that, and 
there may be something I don't know, so I will offer that caution at the 
outset. The Justice Department, the FBI had certain information that 
they made broadly available, and I think the banks were in better shape 
to take advantage of that information than others were. And I think one 
of the purposes of this meeting is to figure what do we do from here 
forward to make sure that everybody is in the same position.
    But I don't think that, based on what I know now, we should be out 
there finger-pointing at any sector of the economy and what they didn't 
do. I think that they were just better organized to engage in 
information sharing and to set up the defenses necessary to guard 
against this. And what we really want is for every sector of our economy 
to be in the same position.

Oil Prices

    Q. Mr. President, oil prices have now risen above $30 a barrel. Does 
that increase a need to do--is there anything you can do about that? Or 
are you more sympathetic to arguments toward releasing the Strategic 
Petroleum Reserve?
    The President. I think we have to watch this the next few days. 
There are going to be some important meetings with the oil producing 
countries in the next few days, and we will know more about this in a 
week or 10 days about what the trends are going to be.
    But the American people are handling the price increase pretty well 
in terms of every aspect of our lives because of increased energy 
efficiency, except for home heating oil, where you have, in the Mid-
Atlantic States and New England, unfortunately, so many people still 
dependent upon a source of heating which the rest of the country left 
long ago, and they are unbelievably burdened by this.
    Now, we've released $200 million in LIHEAP funds so far. We can 
release more. But that eases the burden on the poorest of our citizens, 
but there are a lot of working people on modest incomes that are just 
getting killed by this because their reliance on home heating oil. And I 
have not closed off any options. I'm monitoring this on a daily basis. 
It's a deeply troubling thing.
    But I think the rest of our country should know--I mean, a lot of 
people are feeling the pinch, maybe if they drive long distances, 
because the price of gasoline has gone up. But there is a group of 
Americans, middle class and lower middle income Americans, who have 
limited disposable incomes, who have no option to heat their homes but 
home heating oil. They're the people that are really getting hurt. And I 
hope--and obviously, the poor would be devastated by it, but we're 
monitoring that daily to make sure we've released enough of the Federal 
funds that we have that go directly to benefit them.
    And so this is a daily watch, and we'll just have to see where we 
are. And I may have

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more to say as the days go by. But we should know more in a week about 
what the trend lines are going to be and what's going to happen to the 
price of oil over the next few months.

Congressional Subpoenas

    Q. Mr. President, did the White House deny congressional committees 
access to E-mails it subpoenaed?
    The President. I believe that we have complied with every request, 
and there have been thousands. If the American people knew how much of 
their money we had to spend complying with requests for paper and E-
mails, they might be quite amazed. But we certainly have done our best 
to do that. There has never been an intentional effort to do that, and I 
think that we are in full compliance. I believe we are. That's what Mr. 
Podesta told me right before we came out.

Internet Security

    Q. Would you entertain one last question, sir? We've always heard 
for the last 4 or 5 years that it was going to take an electronic Pearl 
Harbor--many of the people around this table I've interviewed over the 
last 4 or 5 years, and they've agreed that's the kind of impact we would 
need for everybody to play together and work together. Is that what 
happened last week?
    The President. Well, I hope not. [Laughter] I think it was an alarm. 
I don't think it was Pearl Harbor. We lost our Pacific Fleet at Pearl 
Harbor; I don't think the analogous loss was that great. But I think 
it----
    Q. Was it of concern?
    The President. Look, it's a source of concern, but I don't think we 
should leave here with this vast sense of insecurity. We ought to leave 
here with a sense of confidence that this is a challenge that was 
entirely predictable. It's part of the price of the success of the 
Internet, and we're all determined to work together to meet it. And so, 
yes, we got an alarm, but I wouldn't say--I wouldn't analogize it to 
Pearl Harbor.
    We're all here. We're going to figure out what to do. But you need 
to let us work now.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:57 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Richard A. Clarke, Special 
Assistant to the President and National Coordinator for Transnational 
Threats, National Security Council. The President also referred to 
LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The transcript 
released by the Office of the Press Secretary also included the remarks 
of Peter Solvik. A tape was not available for verification of the 
content of these remarks.