The of 2009, introduced in April by Senators Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, contains "imperfect" language, said Ellen Doneski, chief of staff for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The bill, among other things, allows the U.S. president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network." The sponsors of the bill are looking for input on that section and other parts of the bill, said Doneski, who works for Rockefeller, the committee chairman.

That section of the bill was an attempt to put into law who has the ultimate authority for protecting U.S. cyberinfrastructure, Doneski said Friday at a cybersecurity forum sponsored by Google and the Center for New American Security, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "We were trying to state the obvious: In an extreme cyberemergency or attack, the president ultimately has constitutional authority to protect the country," she said. "It really wasn't meant to go beyond that."

Other speakers at Friday's event said they welcomed new attention on cybersecurity by members of Congress and especially Obama. The president's speech in late May, accompanied by a cybersecurity policy review, was "game-changing," said Christopher Painter, cybersecurity director at the U.S. National Security Council.

Personal attention by Obama will drive cybersecurity changes in the U.S. government, Painter said.