Rein Lang met with the Minister of Justice of the USA

The Minister of Justice of Estonia, Rein Lang participated in a high-level cyber security conference in the USA and met with Louis Grever, the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI and with Eric Holder, a colleague in the USA.

On May 3-5, a cyber security conference was held in Dallas, Texas; the Minister of Justice of Estonia, Rein Lang participated in this conference as the Assistant Manager of the workgroup on national security. The conference had participants from among experts and top management of information technology enterprises from the USA, representatives of the European Committee and governmental officials and congressmen of the USA. Discussions were held about the roles of countries, the private sector and every member of the society in ensuring cyber security.

According to Rein Lang, the topic of national security is gaining more and more importance and attacks against one of the important infrastructures of a country will become the main security threat in near future. “A cyber attack against the medical system of a country could cause more casualties than a bomb explosion in the subway of a metropolis,” Lang said.

After the conference, the Minister’s visit continued in Washington, the capital of the United States of America, where meetings with Louis Grever, the Executive Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) of the USA and with Eric Holder, the Minister of Justice of the USA took place on May 6.

When talking about the topics of the meetings, Lang highlighted the message of Estonia conveying the intent to turn from an aid receiver into an aid giver in the battle against cyber crime and also the importance of the co-operation with the United States.

“The FBI is the world’s strongest police organisation, so there’s every reason to learn from the experience of Americans how to establish the technical schemes necessary for legal protection. Police work in the future will also be based on computers, not batons,” Lang noted.

The meeting with colleague Eric Holder confirmed that Americans will support the training of Estonian prosecutors in the field of adversarial process.

Lang also discussed with both Louis Grever and Minister Holder the possibility of establishing connections between the Estonian Forensics Institute (EFI) and the relevant structures of the FBI. In the future, the EFI could become the competence centre of Eastern Europe, establishing know-how for combating organised crime in cyberspace.

Diana Kõmmus

Ministry of Justice
Public Relations Division
Phone 620 8118
Mobile phone 533 15431