(Katrina is to Bush) as (OPM is to Obama)

2015-08-05

Remember Hurricane Katrina?
Remember how the the media kept running reports blaming then-president Bush
for not doing enough to mitigate the suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina?
The media left no doubt:
there were many who held Bush personally and directly responsible
for the delays in providing assistance.

Now fast forward to 2015.
Another disaster has struck the nation,
the ability of others, almost surely the Chinese,
to steal the vital personal information on, amazingly, EVERYONE
who applied for a security clearance since 2000.
You don't have to be a counterintelligence professional to imagine
how useful this information will be to the Chinese,
in many, many ways.

And how did this happen?
Was it not foreseeable?
Of course it was.
That the Chinese had both the ability and the motivation to do such
was surely well-known to many.
That the OPM computers had poor security defenses was brought out loud and clear
in the yearly FISMA-required audits conducted by the OPM OIG,
which were supplied to Obama's OMB.
That the data in those files would be desired by other powers,
including but not limited to the Chinese,
was crystal-clear to anyone with the most basic understanding of the goals of espionage.
Was there no one in the White House capable of connecting these dots?
Evidently not.
Or maybe someone in the WH did, but was not listened to.

In any case,
whatever the future investigations and reports turn up,
one thing will be clear and unavoidable:
Obama, despite paying lip service to the importance of cybersecurity,
didn't put in place an organization that could deliver the reality of cybersecurity
in a place for which Obama had direct responsibility.

Why, in God's name,
is the media not holding Obama directly accountable
for this disastrous wound to America's security,
one that will have repercussions for years and decades to come,
long after Obama leaves the White House?

Why is not the OPM breach Obama's Katrina?
W