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President Obama called on lawmakers Friday to pass tougher laws to protect against cyberattacks, and he also aimed part of his plea at business leaders whose help he needs in the fight.

Just before he signed an executive order to promote information-sharing between the private sector and the government, Obama spoke of a "spirit of collaboration" that he maintains would help all sides respond quickly to an attack.

"This has to be a shared mission," Obama said. Because computer networks are held largely by the private sector, "government can't do this alone," he said.

"But the private sector can't do it alone," either, he said during an address at a cybersecurity summit at Stanford University.

A major hurdle standing in the way of collaboration is a lack of trust on the part of business leaders, particularly in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations about how the government tried to use private companies' systems in spying.

Tech companies have bolstered their security to keep both hackers and government authorities out of private data.

The resulting tension burst into view in the debate over decisions by Apple Inc. and Google Inc. to encrypt data automatically on some of the software they produce.

The moves drew criticism from top U.S. law enforcement and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who complained that it would make such data as call records or photos transferred on an iPhone inaccessible to law enforcement or intelligence officials who want it for investigations.

"You do want the private sector and the government to work together, and they are. But at the same time, there is this huge area where they're not," said Daniel Castro, a senior analyst at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank.

Until those tensions are eased, he said, "we won't have a coherent cybersecurity policy."

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Obama seeks help from Congress, tech industry to fight cyberattacks

Israelis are increasingly convinced President Obama is meddling in their upcoming election, and some observers predict the White House's alleged effort to undermine Benjamin Netanyahu could indeed wind up tipping the scales in favor of the prime minister.

Former Obama campaign workers have launched campaign teams throughout Israel that experts say are indirectly funded with U.S. State Department grants and which are solely focused on ousting the prime minister, who has a well-chronicled adversarial relationship with Obama. While there is no concrete evidence Obama is personally pulling strings to undermine Netanyahu in the March 17 vote, polls show a strong majority of Israelis believe he is.

"You cannot prove a direct link, said Danny Ayalon, Israels ambassador to the U.S. from 2002-2006. But there is a dotted line. So a lot of Israelis...connect the dots.

Ayalon said Secretary of State John Kerry signaled the start of the Obama administrations election push against Netanyahu when he reportedly warned EU envoys at a private late December luncheon that theyd be helping the Israeli leader and the political right if they voted on a Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN at that time.

Then came news that the U.S.-based nonprofit OneVoice Movement until recently headed by a member of U.S. Democratic administrations and recipient of some $350,000 in recent State Department grants had entered into a partnership with the Israel-based Victory 15 campaign itself guided by top operatives of Obamas own successful White House runs as it pushes its replace the government mantra.

- Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.

Things came to a head, said Ayalon, when the White House said Obama would not meet with Netanyahu when the Israeli leader at the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner came to Washington to address a joint session of Congress Tuesday on problems his government sees with administration-backed efforts to reach a nuclear weapons inspection deal with Iran.

If anyone thinks they can influence the Israeli electorate from overseas, they are sorely mistaken, Ayalon told FoxNews.com. Israelis, like any people, (will) be defiant and oppose any hint or visibility of foreign interference in their domestic affairs.

That is why this may actually produce a backlash.

A poll this week has already shown Netanyahus center-right Likud Party holding sway as its main rival a center-left alliance called Zionist Union faltered. This comes a little more than a week after a Jerusalem Post/Maariv Sof Hashavua poll showed that 62 percent of 589 Israeli respondents believed the Obama administration was interfering in the election.

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OBAMA MEDDLING? Charges ex-campaign aides trying to oust Netanyahu

The Obama administration moved Monday to reverse a federal judges order in Texas that blocked a White House plan to shield up to 5 million immigrants from deportation.

In a court filing in Brownsville, Texas, the government urged U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen to lift his own injunction and allow President Obamas immigration initiatives to proceed. Those initiatives would offer immigrants in the country illegally the chance to apply for a three-year permit to stay and work on U.S. soil if they met certain criteria.

Leaving the injunction in place would work immense harm to the public interest by undermining efforts to encourage illegal aliens with significant ties to the community and no serious criminal record to come out of the shadows and to request the ability to work legally, the motion says.

The administration argued that Texas and 25 other states that sued the government had no legal standing to interfere in federal enforcement of immigration law.

Hanens ruling already has disrupted the governments effort to prepare for an expected onslaught of applications. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service had leased an office center in northern Virginia, and asked contractors to submit bids to supply records services by Monday.

That contract was canceled Friday, as the program ground to a halt.

Obama had invoked his executive authority when he announced the deportation waiver program in November, saying he was tired of waiting for Congress to reform the immigration system.

The 26 states challenged Obamas actions in court. Last week, hours before the application process was scheduled to start, Hanen issued an injunction that barred implementation of the programs, agreeing with the states that Obama had outstripped his constitutional powers.

The administration asked Hanen to stay his own order while the government appealed his ruling.

The largest part of the program, called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, would protect an estimated 4 million immigrants from deportation if they can prove they have lived in the U.S. for five years, or are parents of citizens or legal residents. Applicants with serious criminal records are not eligible.

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Obama administration seeks to reverse Texas judge's immigration ruling

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