SECURITY:

The White House today was expressing "profound disappointment" about Republican "obstructionists," claiming that "special interests" were "seeking to avoid accountability" and that the legislation would "better protect our nation from potentially catastrophic cyberattacks." One main point of debate in this now-stalled legislation is whether any new cybersecurity guidelines should be mandatory or voluntary for companies such as electric-power suppliers to follow.

The original cybersecurity bill had made proposed standards mandatory, but even after it was watered down to be more optional, it still didn't win approval from skeptical Republicans who don't want private industry regulated this way. This anti-cybersecurity regulation stance draws fierce criticism from Stewart Baker, an attorney who served at Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration and the National Security Agency, and whose national-security defense hawk credentials shouldn't be in doubt.

"I would support mandatory requirements because I feel this is a real crisis," said , partner in the Washington, D.C. law office of Steptoe & Johnson.

Long connected in national-intelligence circles, Baker says he's speaking about his own personal point of view when he discusses the now-stalled cybersecurity bill.