Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA-14), Republican Leader of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, highlighted that for his last appropriations cycle in Congress, he'll continue working to champion and include provisions in this year's funding bills to boost our nation's cyber and telecommunications security, in addition to leading on issues of importance to Georgia.
An excerpt of his prepared remarks from today's markup of the FY21 Financial Services and General Government funding bill can be seen below. You can watch his full subcommittee remarks here.
"In my last few months in Congress, one of the policy items I've continued to be passionate about is the importance of strong cybersecurity, especially as our workforce is disrupted and displaced as a result of the pandemic.
This means building secure networks in order to prevent foreign, state-owned enterprises from accessing our data and conducting surveillance of Americans like you and me.
It means preventing international cyber criminals from accessing our financial markets, and making sure that all of our connected devices meet an industry standard of security before they enter our homes and hook up to our WiFi.
In my role as Vice Chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, I've also come to appreciate the importance of having a forward thinking, modern government.
This means empowering federal agencies to use cloud technologies. It's important that our workforce can be accessible anywhere. But it's also important to keep that workforce -- and its data -- safe from malicious online actors.