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U.S. representative Adam H. Putnam: as franchising strives to meet technology's challenges in the business sector, this Capitol Hill leader maintains a sharp focus on government information technology spending and the threats of cyber-crime.

Article Excerpt
A fifth generation Floridian, Congressman Adam Putnam represents the 12th District of Florida. His legislative committee assignments for the 108th Congress include the Agriculture, Budget, Government Reform, and Joint Economic Committees. Putnam is one of the few members of Congress to hold four committee assignments.

In January 2003, he was appointed to serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census. His ascension to the chairmanship makes Congressman Putnam the youngest subcommittee chairman in the 108th Congress and one of the youngest in the history of the United States Congress. He also serves on the House Republican Policy Committee and the Republican Steering Committee.

As chairman of the Technology Subcommittee, Putnam has focused on the federal government's $60 billion investment in information technology to ensure that taxpayer's dollars are being spent wisely. He has been the lead congressional voice addressing the threat of cyber crimes against the nation's crucial infrastructure, and has played a critical role in advancing the President's Management Agenda to coordinate and streamline communications among the various federal departments and agencies.

FW: As chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census, what initiatives have you undertaken?

Rep. Putnam: The subcommittee has been extremely active in fulfilling its oversight responsibility throughout the 108th Congress, and I have endeavored to focus oversight attention in a number of specific topical areas. Those areas have included information security; the President's Management Agenda federal e-government initiatives; data mining and associated technologies utilized in the gathering, storage and sharing of information, corresponding privacy issues, such as identity management and protection; electronic records management; radio frequency communications interoperability; and a variety of census issues. The subcommittee has conducted more than 30 hearings on these topics and has plans to conduct several more hearings before the end of this Congress.

Of all the issues that the subcommittee has actively pursued, I think information security is one of the most critical. As a member of Congress, a home computer user, and a champion of small business, the problem of computer security hits particularly close to home for me, and I have undertaken an aggressive effort to improve cyber-security in every sector of our nation.

The Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 defined parameters and guidance for federal agencies regarding their requirements for protection of the nation's information networks and the information assets that they contain. Accordingly, the subcommittee has conducted a number of oversight hearings that have examined the issues directly related to FISMA. This effort includes compliance evaluation through the issuance of an annual scorecard that measures progress and produces a grade based on those results.

Additionally, I...