DC to DEF CON Q&A

Bridging Capitol Hill and the Hacker Community

Congressional Representatives Will Hurd and James Langevin participate in an interactive town hall session organized with the Atlantic Council Cyber Statecraft Initiative to bridge the divide between federal policymakers and technical security researchers. Both representatives bring specialized backgrounds to the discussion—Hurd as an undercover CIA operations officer and Langevin as co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus.

Legislative Challenges in Technical Policy

The discussion addresses the friction between statutory law and rapid technological evolution. The congressmen examine key statutory frameworks governing vulnerability research and reverse engineering, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), exploring legislative efforts to establish safe harbor protections for good-faith security researchers.

Critical Infrastructure and Government Cyber Defense

Hurd and Langevin review federal incident response coordination, workforce shortages in public sector cybersecurity, and the vulnerability of legacy federal IT infrastructure. They analyze the impact of high-profile nation-state intrusions against government agencies and discuss the implementation of binding operational directives to phase out unmaintainable legacy protocols and insecure software vendors across federal civilian networks.

Interactive Community Dialogue

Audience members question the representatives on controversial policy topics, including government vulnerability hoarding, encryption backdoors, intelligence community surveillance authorities, and the risks of regulatory mandates stifle innovation. The congressmen emphasize that sustainable national cyber defense requires regular, transparent engagement between technical practitioners and legislative committees drafting national security policy.