The White House Briefing Room
January 22, 1999
REMARKS BY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER; DR. JOSHUA LEDERBERG, NOBEL LAUREATE, AND JAMIE GORELICK, OF FANNIE MAE FOUNDATION,
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release January 22, 1999
REMARKS BY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER;
DR. JOSHUA LEDERBERG, NOBEL LAUREATE,
AND JAMIE GORELICK, OF FANNIE MAE FOUNDATION,
ON KEEPING AMERICA SECURE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
National Academy of Sciences
Washington. D.C.
MR. BERGER: Good morning to all of you and welcome.
Let me thank you all for coming. Let me acknowledge in particular
Dr. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences; Dr.
William Wulf, President of the National Academy of Engineering; and
Dr. Kenneth Shine, President of the National Academy of Medicine.
We are here to discuss emerging threats to America's
security as we reach a new century. How do we respond to the threat
of terrorists around the world, turning from bullets and bombs to
even more insidious and potent weapons? What if they and the rogue
states that sponsor them try to attack the critical computer systems
that drive our society? What if they seek to use chemical,
biological, even nuclear weapons? The United States must deal with
these emerging threats now, so that the instruments of prevention
develop at least as rapidly as the instruments of disruption.
Today we are confronting these challenges with an
extraordinary team of dedicated professionals across our government
-- with law enforcement efforts headed by Attorney General Reno and
FBI Director Freeh; with strong diplomacy backed by a strong defense
under Secretary of State Albright and Secretary of Defense Cohen;
with better intelligence under the direction of Director Tenet; and
determined efforts to contain weapons proliferation under Energy
Secretary Richardson; with emergency management under FEMA Director
Witt; private industry cooperation directed by Secretary Daley; and
aviation security under Transportation Secretary Slater; and with
public health and management and medical research guided by Health
and Human Services Secretary Shalala -- who probably did not think
she was going to be part of the national security team when she
became Secretary of HHS.
And since last spring, with the efforts of the
President's National Coordinator for Security Infrastructure
Protection and Counterterrorism, Richard Clarke, who is working to
make all these pieces fit together in a united effort. And most of
all, we have a President who, from the outset of his administration,
has put the task of meeting new security threats at the very
forefront of our national security strategy -- a President who has
driven all of us to seek out the best minds and ask the important
questions as we prepare for the future.
Today the President will announce new initiatives to
combat these emerging threats. But before the President addresses
us, I want to present two important representatives of the private
sector. The involvement of the private sector in these efforts, from
top researchers at our universities to industry leaders, together
with the participation of state and local governments, is absolutely
critical if we are to succeed.
We're pleased to be joined today by Jamie Gorelick, who
will discuss the danger that our critical infrastructures are
becoming vulnerable to computer and other forms of attack, the cyber
threat. She is Vice Chair of Fannie Mae, the nation's largest funder
for home mortgages. She is also the former co-chair of the Advisory
Committee of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure
Protection. And we in the administration know her well from her
extraordinarily able tenure as Deputy Attorney General and General
Counsel of the Department of Defense.
But first we will hear from Dr. Joshua Lederberg, a
geneticist and President Emeritus of the Rockefeller University in
New York. Dr. Lederberg won the Nobel Prize in Medicine at age 33 --
which, I suppose, not only makes me a failure -- (laughter) -- but
only gives my children a few years. (Laughter.) At least the
President can say that he was governor by the time he was 33.
(Laughter and applause.)
Dr. Lederberg has been a frequent advisor to our
government on the threat of biological weapons, and he was a key
participant in a roundtable on this issue that the President convened
last spring.
Dr. Lederberg. (Applause.)
DR. LEDERBERG: Mr. President, distinguished officers of
government, scientific colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. For over
half a century I've had the joy and excitement of research on the
microbial world, its evolution, the conspiracies it harbors, and its
ambiguous competition with the human species.
There have been many occasions in this very hall to
share news of profound scientific discoveries which not only broaden
our conceptual understanding of ourselves and our biological extended
family in the living world, but gave us ever sharper tools to deal
with pestilence and decay.
But throughout that time, I've been imbued with the fear
that, just as happened with physics and chemistry, that great
advances in medicine would be turned into engines of war. That fear
has been compounded by the deterioration of civil order that might
otherwise restrain the use of weapons of mass destruction, and by the
ease with which nature already provides the germs of disease that
might be used as weapons.
In fact, the very triumph of the democratic world's
military technology with guided missiles and dominance of the
battlefield drives the agents of disorder to ever more subversive
means of attack and inspires new scales of terrorism, grand and
small.
We have made great progress, diplomatically and in
international law, with the prohibitions against biological and
chemical weapons, though there is some way to go in their
enforcement. However, our civilian populations have, until now, been
almost undefended against bioterrorism, in an era where political
disorder weakens the system of deterrence that had been our main
shield throughout the Cold War.
The reconstruction of bio-defenses must be regarded as a
branch of public health and it is equally necessary to deal with
cyclic renewals of historic national plagues as much as with those
borne of malice.
So it has been extremely gratifying that during the past
months and year these concerns, voiced so persuasively by many of my
colleagues here at the Academy and the Institute of
Medicine, have reached the attention of the highest levels of
government, and action plans have been embodied in numerous executive
orders and in the budgetary proposals that the
President will discuss this morning.
Thank you, and here's Jamie Gorelick. (Applause.)
MS. GORELICK: Mr. President, distinguished guests. Ten
years ago I would not have put cyber terrorism at the top of the
threats to our national security. But the landscape has changed.
Given how well-armed we are, as Josh said, as a nation, but how
reliant we are on computers in our everyday business and private
lives, our nation's cyber systems become a tremendous target.
Today a small group of technically sophisticated people
with nothing more than off-the-shelf computer equipment can get into,
can disrupt the computers and the Internet connections on which our
finance, telecommunications, power, water systems, emergency service
systems all depend.
Is this speculation? No, it is not. In exercise
eligible receiver, our Defense Department conducted a war game using
this technique and came to just that conclusion. And terrorists,
organized crime, drug cartels, as well as nation states are either
creating cybertech capabilities or are talking about using them. I
believe that cyberspace is the next battlefield for this nation.
Now, cyber terrorism may be a new issue to many
Americans, but it's not new to me and it's not new to this
administration. In 1995, our Attorney General asked me to chair a
critical infrastructure working group that brought together Justice
and Defense and the intelligence community to begin to address what
we saw as a new and emerging threat. The President then appointed a
commission on critical infrastructure protection whose advisory board
I co-chaired.
In response to his commission's work, last year the
President signed two directives -- to strengthen U.S. readiness to
meet unconventional threats to our nation, and to protect our
critical infrastructures. He appointed a national coordinator, Dick
Clarke, to review and handle and coordinate security infrastructure
protection and counterterrorism, and a national plan is under
development to ensure that America can defend itself in cyberspace.
Now, as part of that national plan I hope that we can
see action in a number of areas, three of which I see as particularly
pressing. The first, both the public and private sectors need to be
aware of the problem and the security measures that can be taken to
address it. I'd like to see the private sector work with the federal
government to make sure that we have enough people who are trained in
computer security, which we do not now have.
Second, we need to encourage ways for the government and
the private sector to share information on cyber intrusions and on
new techniques for preventing those intrusions, and responding to
them. A government-chartered, privately-run center could do this,
and also help develop standards for use in both industry and
government. This will complement the government's obligation to
ensure that we have the ability to respond as a nation to any attack.
Third, the companies that manage and assess risk for
private sector clients, like insurance companies and accounting
firms, need to focus on the risk that American businesses face from
cyber attacks. I'd like to see the widespread use of cyber security
best practices and standards as a tool of good business
management for every business.
I want to thank the President for his appreciation of
the threat and his commitment of resources to address it. And I will
urge the business community to respond in kind. This President has
always been sensitive to the promise of the Information Age, what it
can mean to students, what it can mean to families, to a world drawn
closer in many ways by the speed of communication. At the same time,
he knows that that promise comes with a price, and the price is
vigilance, because so much is at stake.
We're grateful for his leadership both in promoting the
cyber world and in protecting it.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor and my personal
privilege to present to you the President of the United States.
(Applause.)
END
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