Jeb Bush Proposes Putting NSA in Charge of Civilian Data, Cybersecurity

At the tail end of the Jan 14 Republican presidential debate, dominated by personal feuds and mutual condemnation of the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush made a stunning proposal: Put the National Security Agency in charge of civilian data and cybersecurity. The proposal, which represents a major expansion of the intelligence agency's role, shocked some observers on Twitter, with some calling it akin to a "police state."

When asked by Fox Business moderator Neil Cavuto about Apple CEO Tim Cook's strong opposition to White House requests for a backdoor to encryption, Bush said that he would have meetings with executives in Silicon Valley to get them to change their minds. "What if Tim Cook is telling you ‘no, Mr. President’?" Cavuto asked. Jeb replied: "You keep asking." Bush also suggested offering tech companies "liability relief so that if they share data, they're not fearful of a lawsuit." And he went further, alarming some observers when he said about cybersecurity: "We should put the NSA in charge of the civilian side of this and we need much more cooperation with our private sector."