Delays, delays on White House cyber positions.
The likely nominees for cyberczar: Howard Schmidt, former White House special adviser for cyberspace security, and Frank Kramer, an assistant Defense secretary under President Bill Clinton. But other names are still being floated: Microsoft Vice President Scott Charney; Obama transition team technology adviser Paul Kurtz; and former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va.
Davis said he doesn't want the job and his reasons may have something to do with the delay. He said the job was too ambiguous, what with a reporting structure that leads both to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.
The cyberczar jobs include setting up a framework for interagency collaboration; initiating a national public awareness campaign; developing public-private partnerships; and preparing an incident response plan.
And the Administration has no idea where to put the IP coordinator - Rahm Emanuel has ruled out placement within the Domestic Policy Council, National Economic Council or National Security Council - that job won't be filled until a decision is made. Possibilities: The Trade Representative, OMB or the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. OSTP officials previously took pro-tech viewpoints that clashed with the Hollywood crowd, so putting the job there is a nonstarter. OMB isn't exactly a policy center. The U.S. Trade Representative makes sense, but Congress assigned the coordinator to over see USTR.