Clinton Pushes Increased Internet Security Funding.

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President Clinton today highlighted his $2 billion budget proposal - up from $1.75 billion allotted for FY2000 - to address Internet security, including funding for the National Plan for Information Systems Protection. The administration has included a request for $9 million in its pending emergency request to Congress as a down payment on FY2001 cyber-protection initiatives. But White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart indicated that, despite the surprisingly effective effort last week by hackers to bring down popular Web sites - and today's focus on what more can be done - the administration has requested "the right amount of funds" from Congress, and is not considering supplemental requests for additional money. "We have a very vigorous and strong plan to protect federal computer assets," Lockhart said, adding that the private sector had been similarly aggressive. "It's quite important to keep what's gong on here in perspective," he said. "We've got denial of service attacks ... we're not talking about [hackers] taking the system down."