Op-Eds

Jan 3, 2017

Report on warrantless surveillance shows Congress must update privacy laws

Imagine living in a country where individual privacy is not protected. Where local police officers can read your text messages without a warrant. Where state and federal officers can trick your cell phone into thinking it’s connecting to a cell tower when it’s really connecting to a device that gives big brother your location and the telephone numbers you’re calling. Where none of your cell phone use is private and some officers don’t need probable cause to track you. Because of an ...

Sep 29, 2016

The man behind the curtain in drug price increases

More so than most issues we deal with in Washington, health care is personal.  We all feel it when something changes in our health care system.  No one is immune, and for some, those changes mean life or death. It is very understandable, then, that fluctuation in drug prices draws so much public attention.  Lifesaving medications are not a choice for a family relying on them to protect a loved one, they are a necessity. As a pharmacist for more than 30 years, and the only pharmacist in ...

Sep 28, 2016

Mylan CEO should be ashamed of EpiPen prices

Last week the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on the skyrocketing price of life-saving Epinephrine Auto-Injectors, better known as the EpiPen. This hearing was especially important because EpiPens are predominantly used to keep children alive, which makes accessibility imperative. During the hearing, I and other members of the committee questioned Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan, the pharmaceuticals company that manufactures EpiPen. Recently, Mylan has deservedly ...

Sep 19, 2016

Adopting a zero trust cyber model in government

There is no disputing the 2015 OPM data breach was a disastrous event. The implications are catastrophic and will reverberate for generations. Foreign attackers stole personally identifiable information (PII) and security clearance background investigation information of 22.1 million individuals, capturing fingerprint data of 5.6 million of those individuals. This didn’t have to happen. The arrival of sophisticated threat actors shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Federal agencies must ...

Jul 26, 2016

Why The US Government Needs a Cyber National Guard

I knew the federal government had a real problem with cybersecurity. But there was one moment, during an oversight hearing with the senior security officer at the Social Security Administration (SSA), that I realized it was even worse than I originally thought. I asked a simple question about what the agency, which stores the personally identifiable information for nearly all Americans, was doing to patch bugs revealed by a technical vulnerability ...

Jul 6, 2016

Hillary Clinton: Above the law?

For those who wonder why the vast majority of regular Americans think Washington, D.C., is rigged against them, just look at today’s headlines. They show that the elite and well-connected in Washington play by a different set of rules. ADVERTISEMENT When testifying before the Benghazi Select Committee in October of 2015, Hillary Clinton said to us under oath, “there was nothing marked classified on my emails, either sent or received.” We now know that statement is patently false, ...

Jun 21, 2016

Rep. Jordan: Impeach IRS commissioner

Since then-IRS official Lois Lerner first revealed in 2013 that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative organizations for their political views, the American people have sought justice in the matter. President Obama appointed John Koskinen as IRS commissioner to clean up the agency and help Congress get to the bottom of the targeting scandal. Koskinen has instead stonewalled and impeded congressional investigations into the matter. With two subpoenas and three preservation orders in ...

Jun 1, 2016

Reps. Jordan, DeSantis: The case for impeaching the IRS Commissioner

Last week the House Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on whether to impeach Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen for obstructing justice, providing false testimony to Congress, disregarding Congressional subpoenas, and stonewalling a congressional investigation. Civil servants like Mr. Koskinen have historically been held to a higher standard than private citizens because they have fiduciary obligations to the public. Under Mr. ...

Feb 24, 2016

How collective bargaining undermines cybersecurity

The federal government’s most important responsibility is to protect this nation and its citizens. That includes protecting against cyberattacks. Recall last summer’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) hack, when, in one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history, the personally identifiable information of more than 21.5 million Americans was stolen, including fingerprint data of nearly 6 million federal employees. In light of such imminent dangers, federal agencies should have the ...

Feb 24, 2016

Obama’s big mistake on cyber

Cyber criminals, hacktivists, and foreign adversaries conduct millions of cyberattacks against U.S. interests daily, looking to steal state secrets and valuable information and undermine critical infrastructure. Attacks on the Office of Personnel Management and big-name private sector companies have shown that no one is immune. To defend their networks and fix breaches, companies that harbor valuable information must rapidly communicate about vulnerabilities and issue necessary patches. But in ...