Colonial Pipeline Cyberattack Gives Democrats Opportunity to Get Tough on Foreign Hacking | Opinion Fred Turner
, Senior Vice President, BGR Group On 6/4/21 at 8:30 AM EDT
The events of the past month make it glaringly apparent that an agonizing reappraisal of the effectiveness of Washington s policy approach to cybersecurity is long overdue. On May 7, a cyberattack forced the shutdown of one of the largest energy pipelines in the United States, disrupting our vulnerable energy infrastructure. The attack forced Colonial Pipeline to shut down 5,500 miles of pipeline, carrying 45 percent of the East Coast s fuel supplies, and at least 11 states up and down the Eastern Seaboard experienced gas shortages for the first time in memory. According to the assessment of cybersecurity experts, this was only the latest in a string of foreign-sponsored cyberattacks that constitute one of the biggest current threats to U.S. national security.
None of this success is an accident, said Biden, who spoke in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. It isn t luck. It s due in no small part to the cooperation of the American people, who have worn masks and gotten vaccinated for Covid-19. And it s due in no small part to the bold action we took with the American Rescue Plan, said Biden, referring to the massive Covid relief bill Democrats passed in March. This is progress that s pulling our economy out of the worst crisis in the last 100 years, Biden said.
Nonfarm payrolls added a solid 559,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department reported. But the number fell short of the 671,000 jobs that economists surveyed by Dow Jones had anticipated.
Joe Biden Says He s Very Confident in Dr. Anthony Fauci, Despite Email Backlash
On 6/4/21 at 1:19 PM EDT
President Joe Biden says he isn t bothered by Dr. Anthony Fauci s Republican critics who have called for the nation s most prominent COVID-19 expert s firing after a trove of his emails made headlines this week. I m very confident in Dr. Fauci, Biden told reporters on Friday, his first public defense of his chief medical adviser, who has come under renewed scrutiny this past week over his response to the coronavirus pandemic and its origins.
Questioned later in the day during a briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there is no circumstance in which she could see Biden firing Fauci.