CAPITALS Act

Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity Asset Protection of Infrastructure under Terrorist Attack Logistical Structure or CAPITALS Act or the CAPITALS Act

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must report to Congress regarding the feasibility of establishing a DHS Civilian Cyber Defense National Resource.

The report must address:

• the number of persons who would be needed to defend the critical infrastructure of the United States from a cyber attack or man-made intentional or unintentional catastrophic incident;
• elements of DHS that would be best equipped to recruit, train, and manage such a resource;
• resources that could be pre-positioned and training that could be instilled to assure responsiveness if an incident disrupts communications in a region or area;
• the impact of potential recruits' lack of experience in military, intelligence, law enforcement, or government work experience;
• logistics of allowing governors to make requests of DHS to use such a resource in states during times of cyber emergency; and
• whether a resource trained to defend U.S. networks in a major attack or natural or man-made disaster will benefit overall efforts to defend the interests of the United States.