Melissa Hathaway Quits Her Nebulous Obama Cyber-Post

Melissa Hathaway left her post at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to work for Obama to deliver a 60 day cybersecurity review of the national critical infrastructure and make recommendations for a “way forward” to help set policy for Obama. That cyber review was a tepid revamp of recommendations that Bush had received and the same recommendations that US-CERT and DHS make as well. Since the review, she has had some nebulous role with the Obama administration, but for some reason was not considered for the role of the “Cyber Czar.” So she quit.

From ComputerWorld here:

Acting White House head of cyber security Melissa Hathaway has resigned ahead of a president Barack Obama making a permanent appointment to the post he created in May.

Hathaway, who has been on loan from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said she had resigned for personal reasons.

The move confirms speculation that Hathaway is out of the running to become the US national coordinator for cyber security. She was tipped for the job after leading the Obama administration’s 60-day review of the federal government’s cybersecurity capabilities.

New front runners for the post include former Clinton assistant defence secretary Franklin Kramer and former White House IT security advisor Howard Schmidt.

Schmidt would be a good choice, but seriously, enough with the czars in Washington. Hathaway probably quit because of all Obama’s czars, she had the least amount of activity on her criminal record and didn’t want to be associated with these guys.