Legislation that U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) introduced to give police departments additional tools and training to shore up cybersecurity cleared the House with bipartisan support on Tuesday.
The Strengthening State and Local Cyber Crime Fighting Act, H.R. 1616, would authorize the National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI) in Hoover, Alabama, to provide tools and training that enable police to dust for digital fingerprints and to use computer forensics to solve cases.
“I’m grateful my bill passed the House to help equip our police, prosecutors and judges to address cybercrime at the state and local level,” said Ratcliffe, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection. “The strong support it’s already received in the Senate makes me optimistic that we’ll get it all the way to the president’s desk for his signature.”
U.S Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced the Senate version of the bill last month with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
“New technology has helped us to be better connected, more organized and even more expressive,” Grassley said. “But it can also prove helpful in solving crimes. Just as law enforcement has long used techniques, like fingerprinting, to identify clues to crack a case, digital forensics is becoming more critical to uncovering evidence that can help solve crimes and bring perpetrators to justice.”
The NCFI has provided training to more than 6,250 local police officers from all 50 states, and its graduates work police departments serving more than 2,000 communities across the country.
“The dedicated men and women in law enforcement deserve to have every tool possible at their disposal to combat rapidly evolving threats in cyberspace,” Ratcliffe said. “Whether it’s an email that was sent, an online purchase that was made or geolocation information that places an individual at the scene of the crime — digital evidence now plays a role in virtually every crime law enforcement officers face today.”