back to article Incoming deputy boss of Homeland Security says America's top cyber-agency needs to be reined in

During confirmation hearings in the US Senate Tuesday for the role of deputy director of the Dept of Homeland Security, the nominee Troy Edgar said CISA has had the wrong management and needed to be "reined in." At the start of the Trump administration more than 130 out of 3,000-odd employees at CISA – the US government's …

  1. HuBo Silver badge
    Holmes

    Here DOGE, DOGE, DOGE

    Phew! Amy Gleason managed to escape to Mexico (land of the Free) just before being appointed head of DOGE (naziland) ... that should right answer those doubters who think she's not been made aware of her new job!

    Close call though ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Here DOGE, DOGE, DOGE

      You'd hope she had the background needed to scrub her digital footprint and go completely off the grid.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    good

    I dont even care if the new person supposed to be running the former usds is still not great, it's better than musk running the place.

    1. Ken Y-N

      Re: good

      As good as Linda Whats-her-name "runs" Xitter?

    2. graeme leggett Silver badge

      Re: good

      She won't be in charge of Musk. She's in charge of the organisation that gives a veer of respectability to the "DOGE Temporary Organisation" that is the vehicle for Musk's Twitler Youth group

      They had to name someone to be at the top of the organisation because the Whitehouse press secretary looked even more of an embarrassment claiming they couldn't give out their name while at same time claimed to be totally transparent.

      But now they have. And courts can name her in proceedings.

    3. DS999 Silver badge

      C'mon you're not really that dumb

      Of course Musk is running it, and still will. This announcement is just a distraction, because Trump's admin said that Musk wasn't the head of DOGE - because they don't want congress to subpoena him. There's growing anger on the right over what he's doing since it is hurting people who voted for Trump and red states, and it would only take one republican vote in one of the many committees affected by this to be in favor of subpoenaing him and he'd have to answer questions under oath. That's the last thing either he or Trump wants, so they are claiming this figurehead is in charge.

      If they subpoena her she'll be able to answer truthfully "I don't know" to the many uncomfortable questions that are put to her because she has no idea what is going on. I mean they literally found her vacationing in Mexico after she was announced as the head. If she was really running things there's no way she'd be on vacation a month into the job when all this stuff is happening. If that doesn't scream "I am not involved at all with what is happening" and probably "I didn't even know they were going to designate me the official 'head' of DOGE" I don't know what does!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: C'mon you're not really that dumb

        > There's growing anger on the right over what he's doing since it is hurting people who voted for Trump and red states

        Aw, that's a shame.

        They shat their bed, they can lie in it.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: C'mon you're not really that dumb

          I didn't say I felt bad for them. I'm looking forward to stories about Trump voters who lose their business or farm and go bankrupt because they got exactly what they voted for.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: C'mon you're not really that dumb

            I didn't mean to suggest that you were- any anger and lack of sympathy were aimed at the voters and politicians who put themselves in that position.

            As the saying goes, they didn't think the leopards would eat *their* faces.

  3. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Headmaster

    There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

    Who aren't au fait with US governmental acronyms. It would be nice if the vultures could perhaps explain what CISA is and not require the user to wander off to find out...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

      Cash ISA....?

      1. Paul Herber Silver badge

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        There are people who are not au fait with acronyms like ISA, and they will mean different things in different countries.

        ISA

        Italian Space Agency

        International Soccer Association

        Indonesian Sausage Advocacy

        Independent Slushfund Advisors

        Isvestia Soviet Agency

        Cash

        Johnny, Dave, Pat?

        1. Casca Silver badge

          Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

          Industry Standard Architecture?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        Cheese Infused Sauce Analog. Supermarket mac and cheese, anyone?

      3. Baximelter

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        The style books used to say we should write "Xaa Yaa Zaa Corp (XYZC)" before referring to XYZC in text without any heads up as to what XYZC means. Or maybe it was "XYZC (Xaa Yaa Zaa Corp)". In either case, it would be a blessing if writers still did that. Why did they stop?

    2. Valeyard

      Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

      I was thinking the exact same thing. Just launching straight into all these acronyms and personalities from the US without even enough context to build up a guess.

      And yet the article about Northern Ireland police names being leaked came with all sorts of qualifiers about the fact that there is a bit of historical conflict there, as if we living in the UK really needed to be told that

      Suppose we know who the target audience is now

      1. Michael Strorm Silver badge

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        This has been the case for some time.

        While The Register (*) had already been pandering to its growing US readership in the years prior, it's pretty clear in hindsight that the biggest change in style- and the most obvious sign that they no longer saw the UK audience as its main target- happened when they switched the main site from "theregister.co.uk" to "theregister.com" around five years ago.

        Since this happened in May 2020 (**), with people distracted by Covid and routines disrupted by the first lockdown, it's likely that this was missed by many and didn't provoke the attention it might otherwise have. (Your guess is as good as mine as to whether that timing was intentional or coincidental.)

        Regardless, it managed to slip through mostly unnoticed at the time, but that was a pretty clear statement of intent.

        (*) Does the straighter, more US-focused and more faceless post-switch site still count as "El Reg"?

        (**) Before and after.

    3. Alister

      Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

      Agreed.

      For those who can't be arsed to google, it is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        You spoilsport you! ;)

    4. Irongut Silver badge

      Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

      If you work in IT you should probably have heard of CISA.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        Probably true, at least if you work in or deal with security in the US. But a lot of El Reg's readers work in other fields (and I'm glad of it; the width of experience makes this a very nice place to be.)

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

          CISA has been covered in this paper quite a lot. I think most people working in security have heard of it and know what it is, for the same reason that I, a non-UK resident working in security, am fully aware of what NCSC* is. Maybe that still should have been covered in the article, but it is far from the first time it has appeared here.

          * National Cyber Security Centre, you could call it the UK equivalent of CISA in the US. NCSC is part of GCHQ. I know what that is too.

          1. Strahd Ivarius Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

            Can you explain what is GHCQ for the Colonials?

            1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

              Re: Can you explain what is GHCQ for the Colonials?

              Sshh, the real name has been heavily encrypted using a Spooner Encryption Algorithm so that nobody can guess it.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

        I had to Google it, and I work for "a large global IT corporation based in the US" (though I'm in Europe). What they do and say is not really relevant for my work of increasing metric X by Y% in [specific industry-related product].

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: There are still some people in El Reg's homeland

          CISA was named in headline of one of The Registers articles on front page when I looked at it this morning

    5. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: CISA

      Funnily enough, it's also the name of a well-known company that manufactures security products. Surprising that there haven't been any disputes about the use of the name.

      https://www.cisa.com/en/header/about_CISA.html

  4. Winkypop Silver badge

    CISA

    Cronies Integration Services America

  5. codejunky Silver badge

    Hmm

    "On Tuesday, about a third of USDS, er, DOGE staff, or 21 people, resigned en masse"

    People not wanting the job voluntarily making savings in the department. Sounds like a success too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm

      A toe-to-toe suck-sess shirley!

    2. Dinanziame Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Hmm

      I believe that the USDS was created from the IT people who volunteered to fix the Obamacare website when it launched. I'm not surprised they have a difference of opinions with Elon Musk

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of course Musk does not have an official capacity. He'd have to lie on the drug screening.

  7. Kev99 Silver badge

    Khrushchev was unbelievably correct. And Yamamoto Wouldn't have said the Japanese Empire had woken Sleeping tiger. Shoot, it's so far into REM sleep it's scary.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mental gymnastics

    "concentrate on protecting government and civilian networks, rather than investigating disinformation and overseas attempts to destabilize America"

    ... Errrr....

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