It's hard to miss the message being communicated by America's intelligence community over the last few weeks. Our country has been under cyber-attack for years and remains under attack to this day.

Foreign interests have been working methodically to undermine our elections infrastructure, our political parties, our communications networks, our energy grid, our markets, our nuclear plants, and more.

This is a new reality of the world-wide connected economy and we have been shockingly slow to respond.

On Tuesday, July 31st, I participated in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Commerce & Science's Subcommittee on Communications & the Internet, where the main topic of discussion was cyber-security. All of the experts testifying to the committee, including former Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, raised serious concerns over our lack of preparedness.

Last week, I signed on to co-sponsor a bi-partisan bill that will deter and punish foreign interference in our politics and our infrastructure. Also last week, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and I sent a letter to the President, urging the Administration to tell us exactly what they are doing to combat attacks on our nation's critical infrastructure.

The President lacks an aggressive response. It's now beyond urgent that we do everything in our power to protect ourselves — even if we have to find ways to move forward without the President's leadership.