President Obama used a White House speech yesterday to try to raise national concern about threats to computer networks, drawing praise from some industry executives and lawmakers but criticism from others who said his initiatives do not go far enough.
Obama said he will name a senior White House official to coordinate government efforts to protect a "strategic national asset": the digital networks that handle phone calls, e-mails, government and military data, and also control power grids, nuclear plants and airplane traffic.
Obama was doing what his predecessors had not: addressing the issue in a highly public way, under the chandeliers of the East Room, before an audience of Cabinet members, industry executives and privacy advocates. He noted that the very networks that allow Americans to bank and shop online are also targets for those who can turn a computer into a "weapon of mass disruption."
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