Howard Schmidt, about to be named cybersecurity adviser, is one of the nicest guys in the business. In Washington, of course, no virtue goes uncriticized, so there are some who'll question whether Howard can survive his swim through the shark tank. With that in mind, I'd say that the most important line in the early leak is this: "Mr. Schmidt will report to the National Security Council — not both to the council and to the National Economic Council, as previously planned, an administration official said on Monday."
I'm quoting from the NYT, but other outlets got a similar spin. That's a very public rebuke for Larry Summers's National Economic Council, which had insisted that the dual reporting structure be included in the "60-day report" issued last spring. Whether the change resulted from hard-nosed bargaining by Howard, campaigning by the NSC, or the critiques of cybersecurity advocates outside government (me included), or all three, it's an early sign that Howard's job, while certainly not a "cybersecurity czar" position, will at least escape the "cybersecurity serf" moniker suggested by critics.
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