Spotlight on RSAC

Ex-CISA chief decries cuts as Trump demands loyalty above all else

Cybersecurity is national security, says Jen Easterly

RSAC America's top cyber-defense agency is "being undermined" by personnel and budget cuts under the Trump administration, some of which are being driven by an expectation of perfect loyalty to the President rather than the nation.

That's according to Jen Easterly, who led the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, aka CISA, under former President Biden.

Speaking at an event on the outskirts of San Francisco's RSA Conference on Tuesday, Easterly didn't mince words, calling the White House's upheaval at CISA "a real loss for the federal government, but more so it's a loss for the American people."

Cybersecurity must be a non-partisan, non-political issue, she added, noting that all federal government employees are required to pledge to uphold the US Constitution.

When asked about ongoing CISA job cuts, Easterly attributed "some of these losses" to a "mandate for loyalty to a person over loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of America."

"That's a loss for everybody in our nation, because cybersecurity is national security," she continued. "Americans should be bothered if there's some other loyalty being required."

Under Trump 2.0, the President's cabinet nominations, political appointees, and firing sprees all suggest he values personal loyalty above all else. 

This includes directing the Department of Justice to probe another former CISA boss, Chris Krebs, who correctly told the American people that Joe Biden won the 2020 election without any outside interference, and that Trump lost.

Easterly also had a response for current Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, took a swipe at CISA in her own RSA keynote on Wednesday, pledging to "put CISA back on mission," because of the agency's efforts to prevent online disinformation, especially as it relates to election security.

Easterly retorted, "To be clear: Out of the $3 billion budget that CISA had, election security was about $45 million," she said. "That's 1.5 percent of the budget."

This task was, in fact, on mission "because election infrastructure was designated as critical infrastructure after Russian attempts to undermine our election security," Easterly added. "And frankly, I was very, very proud of that mission."

She noted CISA's support for state and local election officials who manage cyber and physical security during US elections, and called this work to secure election infrastructure "the golden threads of our democracy."

"It's why I know in 2018, and 2020, and 2024, why I can say with great authority, that there was no attempts that were successful to impact the security of our elections."

More to the point, the gutting of the agency puts the US at risk. As she put it: "In a world where we are facing more serious, more complex, more dynamic threats, in a world where cyber crime damages are expected to cost the world $10.5 trillion by the end of this year, in a world where actors from the Chinese People's Liberation Army are burrowed into our most sensitive critical infrastructure, that is a real loss for America to see the capability and capacity of America's cyber defense agency being undermined." ®

PS: In case you missed it, one of the President's Dept of Justice goons is probing Wikipedia's non-profit status, alleging it somehow falls foul of the rules on charities by allowing foreigners to spread "propaganda" via the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit.