U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT) has reported that President Joe Biden has signed his ‘Better Cybercrime Metrics Act’ into law.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In another victory for embattled U.S. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT), his Better Cybercrime Metrics Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 5.
“Cybercrime is one of the top security threats facing Americans today,” Moore said. “It is imperative that we equip the government to better understand and address the challenges of cybercrime so that we can improve our national cyber-security infrastructure.”
Moore’s staff said that the Better Cybercrime Metric Act would improve how the federal government tracks, measures, analyzes and prosecutes cybercrime.
By starting the process of building an effective system to delineate and track cybercrime incidents, this legislation would allow U.S. law enforcement agencies to better identify cyber-threats, prevent attacks and prosecute perpetrators.
As usual, Moore explained, this was a bipartisan and bicameral effort.
Moore was joined in spearheading this legislation in the U.S. House by co-sponsoring Representatives Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY).
Co-sponsoring a companion bill in the U.S. Senate were Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Thom Tillis (R-NC), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).
It remains to be seen how Moore’s well-deserve reputation for such bipartisanship will play with Utah voters in the upcoming June 28 primary.
Moore made a poor showing at the April 23 Republican nominating convention, where state delegates appeared to reject Moore’s strategy of reaching across the political aisle in favor of a challenger’s fiery rhetoric promising no compromise with Democrats in Congress.
After three rounds of balloting, former civilian intelligence officer Andrew Badger narrowly missed capturing the nomination with 59.2 percent of the ballots cast as opposed to Moore’s 40.7 percent.
Moore will now face off against Badger and former Morgan County commissioner Tina Cannon in the June 28 Republican primary voting.
Cannon had already secured a spot on the primary ballot by collecting signatures.
Moore’s staff say that the federal government currently lacks an effective system to measure cybercrime.
In 2018, a non-partisan study by the Gallop organization found that nearly 25 percent of U.S. households reported being victims of some form of cybercrime, making it the most common crime in America.
A large majority of these crimes are not tracked properly, however. In many cases, these incidents are not measured at all because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) only collects information on slightly more than 1 percent of cybercrime incidents in its Internet Crime Complaint Center database.
The Uniform Crime Reporting Act of 1988 requires all federal law enforcement agencies to report crime data to the FBI. But federal agencies like the FBI and the Secret Service — which often have jurisdiction over cybercrime – are not consistently reporting those events.
State and local authorities’ reporting on cybercrime is also often limited and inconsistent.
This lack of detailed, consistent reporting is an impediment to understanding the scope of the problem, according to Moore’s staff.
Specifically, they say, the Better Cybercrimes Metrics Act would require the Government Accountability Office to access the effectiveness of cybercrime reporting; require the National Crime Victimization Survey to include questions about cybercrime; require the U.S. Department of Justice to develop a taxonomy for cybercrime; and ensure that the National Incident Based Reporting System includes cybercrime reports from federal, state and local officials.
“I am grateful to the members of the House and Senate who supported this bill,” Moore said. “I look forward to seeing the many ways it will positively impact all Americans.”