For New Cyber Adviser, Success or Failure Might Be a Question of Authority – CQ Homeland Security
President Obama had barely announced plans to appoint a White House cyber czar before experts suggested the position might be doomed by a lack of real power.
Obama’s announcement on May 29 sounded good, experts said, but it was missing a crucial element: the assurance that the new official would have budget authority.
“If you do not have the power of the purse, the entrenched bureaucracies will blow you off, they will ignore you,” said Rich Cooper, a principal at the homeland security consulting firm Catalyst Partners.
