Obama to name Howard Schmidt as cybersecurity coordinator

Seven months after President Obama vowed to “personally select” an adviser to orchestrate the government’s strategy for protecting computer systems, the White House will name a former Bush administration official to the job Tuesday.

Washington Post’s Ellen Nakashima writes that Howard A. Schmidt, who was a cyber-adviser in President George W. Bush’s White House, will be Obama’s new cybersecurity coordinator, an administration official said Monday night.

The mission is challenging: to coordinate cybersecurity policy across the federal government, from the military to civilian agencies. Schmidt’s appointment comes as the Pentagon launches a major new “cyber-command” unit up and running and DHS works to improve protection of civilian networks.

In May, Obama declared the nation’s digital networks a “strategic national asset” and said protecting them would be a “national security priority.” Creating a White House cybersecurity office, run by a senior White House official, would be key to that effort, he said. “I’ll depend on this official in all matters relating to cybersecurity, and this official will have my full support and regular access to me as we confront these challenges,” Obama said from the East Room.

Nakashima notes that his remarks were undercut by internal tension over how much authority the “cyber-czar” would have and to whom the official would report. White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers insisted that the new coordinator report to him as well, arguing that cybersecurity is also a matter of national economic security, sources said. The new coordinator, who does not require Senate confirmation, will report to deputy national security adviser John O. Brennan and will “work closely with and collaborate with” the economic council on cyber-issues, the administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the choice was not yet official.

Schmidt was chosen after a long process in which dozens of people were sounded out. Many declined the post, largely out of concern that the job conferred much responsibility with little true authority, some of them said. The cybersecurity chief at the National Security Council, Christopher Painter, has served as the de facto coordinator, trying to push ahead the 60-day cyberspace policy review plan unveiled by Obama in May. That plan’s formulation was led by Melissa Hathaway, who resigned in frustration in August after delays in naming a cyber-coordinator. Schmidt served as special adviser for cyberspace security from 2001 to 2003 and shepherded the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, a plan that then was largely ignored. He left that job also frustrated, colleagues said.