Norms!
by digby
While we argue about upholding international norms, it appears that we’re establishing some interesting new ones. In the case of aggressive cyber warfare, it is “we can do whatever we want”:
U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Washington Post.
That disclosure, in a classified intelligence budget provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, provides new evidence that the Obama administration’s growing ranks of cyberwarriors infiltrate and disrupt foreign computer networks.
Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control. Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed “covert implants,” sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions.
The documents provided by Snowden and interviews with former U.S. officials describe a campaign of computer intrusions that is far broader and more aggressive than previously understood. The Obama administration treats all such cyber-operations as clandestine and declines to acknowledge them.
The scope and scale of offensive operations represent an evolution in policy, which in the past sought to preserve an international norm against acts of aggression in cyberspace, in part because U.S. economic and military power depend so heavily on computers.
“The policy debate has moved so that offensive options are more prominent now,” said former deputy defense secretary William J. Lynn III, who has not seen the budget document and was speaking generally. “I think there’s more of a case made now that offensive cyberoptions can be an important element in deterring certain adversaries.”
I find this very troubling. Obviously the whole world is hacking away and it makes sense for the government to be developing defensive capabilities to protect vital US infrastructure. But this is something very different. It has way too few controls, non-existent oversight and is happening without even the slightest debate among experts much less the public. The minute they start talking about offensive operations being a “deterrent”, citizens need to wake up. There lies danger.
By the way, that icky Glenn Greenwald isn’t reporting this. It’s Barton Gelman of the Washington Post. I eagerly await calls from other journalists for his arrest.