Repeal of 1099 Unsuccessful

A look at the week of November 29, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channel

This week, the unpopular 1099 reporting requirement was upheld in the Senate.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched a new cybersecurity center aimed at facilitating information sharing between federal and state governments to mitigate cyber risk.  A proposed new bill would allow the DHS to monitor some private networks that it deems critical infrastructure.

Repeal of 1099 Unsuccessful — The Senate failed to repeal an unpopular element of the healthcare overhaul even though Democrats and Republicans agreed it needed to be jettisoned to prevent businesses from being saddled with burdensome paperwork, The New York Times reports.  Caught in a partisan dispute over how to proceed with eliminating new tax reporting rules, the Senate was unable to reach enough votes to eliminate the provision.

New DHS Cybersecurity Center Promotes Info Sharing, Security — The DHS launched a new cybersecurity center aimed at communicating more efficiently with state and local governments about potential cybersecurity threats to critical U.S. infrastructure, says InformationWeek. The goal of the new facility is to provide state and local governments with the same critical cyber risk, vulnerability and mitigation data that the federal government is privy to, according to the DHS.

Proposed Legislation To Give DHS Power Over Private Networks — A new bill making the rounds on Capitol Hill will give the DHS some regulatory control over private networks that are considered critical to our nation’s infrastructure.  According to Ars Technica, the bill would also create a new Cybersecurity Compliance Division to oversee establishing performance-based standards that reflect the risks particular to the .gov domain and other critical infrastructure networks.