Hello, I’m a journalist and have fallen for the: something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it – cyberfallacy.

Daily Beast, John Avlon

[…]

It’s hard to tell whether this is just lazy or malevolent, but small-government advocates of gridlock are going to have a hard time explaining to people on Main Street how maintaining the post office isn’t an essential role of government. Reform is the opposite of inaction. If these bipartisan bills that passed the Senate are in need of fixing, then fix ’em—or take responsibility for the looming failure.

Of course, the Senate has its own embarrassments to be held accountable for—and I’m not just talking about Harry Reid invoking Romney’s dad in a cheap campaign attack. The fact that Senate Republicans filibustered a bipartisan attempt to pass a cyber-security bill is not just an indignity, but a dereliction of duty.

We can’t wait for a digital Pearl Harbor to take this 21st-century threat seriously, but the siren song of special interests once again distracted from the national interest. The fact that some senators treated the amendment process as a Christmas tree for their own priorities (like Sen. Chuck Schumer, who attached a post-Aurora gun-control provision onto the bill) also didn’t help the prospects of passage. But this epic failure could have serious national-security consequences.

Tell me, John, what these consequences will be like. At length, if you please.

And then watch as we, the internet security community, tear apart your assumptions, sources and extrapolations.