Point Person: Our Q&A with Richard A. Clarke

From 1992 to 2003, Richard A. Clarke was a top adviser to three presidents on national security and counterterrorism. Well before the 9/11 attacks, he sounded warnings about the threats posed by al-Qaeda. In his new book, Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It, Clarke argues that the United States is highly vulnerable to a potentially catastrophic cyber attack. As a major cyber security conference opens in Dallas this week, Points asked him to assess the dangers:

What’s the most serious cyber security threat facing the United States?

We have two simultaneously. One is actually happening day to day, and it is the massive industrial espionage. It causes us to lose our competitiveness, because we spend money on R&D — our companies and the American government — and other countries steal it. They get the benefit of our R&D for nothing. …