Joint House Subcommittee Hearing To Look at Cybersecurity-Related Additions to Wassenaar

A joint hearing of the House Information Technology and Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies subcommittees will review sections of the Wassenaar Arrangement on cybersecurity that were proposed by the Department of Commerce in May and retracted after industry opposition. The hearing will be Tuesday at 2 p.m. in 2154 Rayburn and will feature witness testimony from State Department, Homeland Security and Commerce Department officials, plus industry professionals including Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) CEO Dean Garfield, Microsoft Assistant General Counsel-Cybersecurity Cristin Flynn Goodwin, and Cheri Flynn McGuire, Symantec vice president-global government affairs and cybersecurity policy. In his written testimony, Garfield expressed concerns for the "commercial and security implications of" the proposed means for addressing the export and proliferation of weaponized malicious software. Garfield's testimony focuses on the importance of cross-border data flows to cybersecurity, the potential impacts of the proposed rules in the Wassenaar Arrangement on cybersecurity and innovation efforts, the broader effects of the proposed rule on the cybersecurity ecosystem and recommendations on how to best achieve the objectives of the Wassenaar Arrangement without compromising security objectives, ITI said.