The Strengthening State and Local Cyber Crime Fighting Act of 2015, which is designed to better equip state and local agencies in the fight against cyber crime, is headed to the House floor for a full vote.
U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), who introduced the bill, said it has successfully cleared the markup processes in both the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees.
The purpose behind H.R. 3490 is to provide cyber-crime training to state and local lawmakers and judges, Ratcliffe said.
Ratcliffe said his time serving as mayor of Heath, Texas, helped him understand what needed to be done in Washington to strengthen law enforcement at the community level and nationwide.
“We can’t just have top-down mandates from the government that don’t work well in application,” Ratcliffe told Ripon Advance. “As the mayor in a small town, you see where the rubber meets the road and why these applications have to be practical.”
Training under the bill would focus on the admissibility of digital evidence – emails, texts and online purchases – in court, Ratcliffe said.
“There’s sort of a misperception that cyber issues are federal issues, as opposed to state and local issues,” Ratcliffe said. “The fact that 85 percent of our nation’s infrastructure is in the hands of the private sector really emphasizes the point that when we’re talking about cyber issues, it isn’t on a large federal scale.”
Ratcliffe, a terrorism prosecutor and U.S. attorney who served after 9/11, said he uses the lessons learned from the attacks in 2001 in his role as chairman of the Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies Subcommittee.
“As I approach this job, it’s constantly about enhancing communication that will help our national security,” Ratcliffe said. “That’s the focus and lens through which I view all information in this area.”
Ratcliffe said he is hopeful that H.B. 3490 will make it to a vote before year’s end.