Shane Harris over at the Atlantic suggests that last night's 60 Minutes piece on cyber security will raise the profile of the issue. The story, he suggests, also annoints US Representative James Langevin the chief spokesman on the issue:

On the legislative side, electrical plant owners and operators of other critical infrastructures should take note: Rep.

Rhody's Congressional delegation was in the spotlight this weekend. First, Senator Jack Reed was on CBS' Face the Nation doing battle with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, on health care reform. Reed voiced support for a public option, while acknowledging an "active debate" on alternatives to a straight public option: an opt-out provision for states and a trigger that would allow the public option to kick in if private insurers are unable to meet certain metrics for care.

State Representative Elizabeth Dennigan's announcement, last night, that she is resigning her seat to focus on her primary challenge to Congressman Jim Langevin came with an interesting bit of icing - an endorsement from Gordon Fox, majority leader in the state's House of Representatives.

The endorsement is not terribly surprising.

Months after President Obama pledged to appoint a cybersecurity czar, the White House has failed to act. With health care and Iraq at the top of the agenda, this is not the stuff of headlines. But holes in the nation's cyber defenses are a serious, if little-noticed, liability.

Congressman James Langevin and Congressman Michael McCaul co-chaired the Center for Strategic and International Studies Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency, which outlined the risk to the nation.

Conservative rabble-rousers have been making headlines across the country in recent weeks with loud protests at town hall forums on health care hosted by Democratic lawmakers. The Rhody Right may have its opportunity now, with Congressman Jim Langevin planning forums here. But they'd better be careful - their screaming counterparts across the country have looked, well, a little nutty.

U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin, D-RI, is the co-author of a scary op-ed in the Washington Times today on our susceptability to a cyber-attack and our need for "cyberresilience," an almost-impossible-to-imagine level of public-private cooperation to protect the country against a digital demolition.

The reasons for doing so are manifest.