A proposed bill passed by New York Representative Edolphus Towns banning the use of peer-to-peer file-sharing or P2P networks on government offices and other networks that has contracts with the government has earner both positive and negative reactions.
Towns made the announcement following a hearing at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee where its members learned that highly sensitive and Top secret documents have been found circulating on P2P websites.
The documents that were allegedly leaked to the file-sharing network contained information such as the location of the US first lady’s safehouse, including the route to reach it. Such sensitive information was only used by the Secret Service in case of national emergencies.
Representative Towns, who also chaired the committee, said that the inadvertent leak of data to the P2P networks only showed the lack of security features of its software.
Citing the other leak data, Towns said that the ban for government and contractors to use similar platforms is necessary since major, if not all, of the P2P file-sharing networks is unwilling and unable to secure users from leaks.
The New York representative describe his action as a referee on the field calling to what he thought is “foul” action by the websites.
Meanwhile, Town’s proposal gathered mixed reactions from the panel, some of which going to the extent of closing down websites that violated or failed to secure data that their users share.
Progress & Freedom Foundation Director and Washington-based think-tank Thomas Sydnor said that it was an excellent move by Towns to push for security measures in the file-sharing websites but he raised the question over the governing body that will handle to cases.
Washington, for several years now, has been debating on how it could regulate P2P networks. In 2004, the White House Office of Management and Budget has issued a directive ordering federal agencies to govern the use of file-sharing networks used by the Feds and contractor networks.