{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-icymi-dr-rand-paul-holds-hearing-state-and-local-cybersecurity-during-pandemic/", "ICYMI: Dr. Rand Paul Holds Hearing on State and Local Cybersecurity During the Pandemic", "2020-12-03", "2020", "2020-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Rand Paul", "P000603", "www.paul.senate.gov", "paul", "https://www.paul.senate.gov/news/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 Yesterday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management (FSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), held a hearing on \u201cState and Local Cybersecurity: Defending Our Communities from Cyber Threats Amid COVID-19.\u201d\n\n\u201cEffective cybersecurity is an ongoing, everyday line of effort. The threat landscape is diverse. The best practices are constantly changing. The information you get may not always be reliable. The maintenance tasks can seem overwhelming, and, most importantly, the stakes are high. And in this context, I have often found myself thinking: effective cybersecurity cannot move at quote \u2018the speed of government,'\u201d Dr. Paul said in his opening statement.\n\nAs Americans continue to conduct more of their activities online due to the pandemic, including going virtual for school and sensitive needs such as consultations with physicians, the subcommittee hearing examined cybersecurity threats faced by state and local governments, with a focus on concerns about ransomware attacks/cyber extortion in critical sectors such as health care and public education.\n\nOver the past several months, a number of school districts around the country have been victims of ransomware attacks, including Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern Virginia \u2014 one of the largest public school districts in the country. Unfortunately, Fairfax County Public Schools declined to appear at the hearing or to give a reason for turning down the opportunity.\n\nEarlier this year, the first day of school for Hartford Public Schools in Connecticut had to be postponed due to a ransomware attack, and, just this week, Baltimore County Public Schools were forced to close for multiple days for the same reason.\n\nOn September 17, the Associated Press reported that a D\u00fcsseldorf, Germany, woman died en route to a hospital in a neighboring city because the hospital in D\u00fcsseldorf had been taken off-line by a ransomware attack.\n\nWhile this hearing was originally scheduled for September 22, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) forced its postponement by blocking the Senate from conducting committee business in protest of President Donald Trump\u2019s then-upcoming selection of future Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.\n\nIn an example of how Washington should function, Dr. Paul worked in close cooperation with subcommittee Ranking Member Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) to craft the hearing.\n\nYou can find Dr. Paul\u2019s opening statement HERE, and you can watch the entire hearing HERE.\n\nWITNESSES:\n\nPanel I\n\nBrandon Wales\n\nActing Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency\n\nU.S. Department of Homeland Security\n\nPanel II\n\nDenis Goulet\n\nCommissioner\n\nNew Hampshire Department of Information Technology\n\nLeslie Torres-Rodriguez, Ed.D.\n\nSuperintendent of Schools\n\nHartford Public Schools\n\nJohn Riggi\n\nSenior Advisor for Cybersecurity and Risk\n\nAmerican Hospital Association\n\nBill Siegel\n\nChief Executive Officer and Co-Founder\n\nCoveware, Inc.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-06-28T00:42:23Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.paul.senate.gov/news-icymi-dr-rand-paul-holds-hearing-state-and-local-cybersecurity-during-pandemic/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9565530344843864, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}