U.S. Congress Authorizes Offensive Use of Cyberwarfare 206
smitty777 writes "Congress has recently authorized the use of offensive military action in cyberspace. From the December 12th conference on the National Defense Authorization Act, it states, 'Congress affirms that the Department of Defense has the capability, and upon direction by the President may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our Nation, Allies and interests, subject to: (1) the policy principles and legal regimes that the Department follows for kinetic capabilities, including the law of armed conflict; and (2) the War Powers Resolution.' According to the FAS, 'Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict.'"
Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend
You see nothing wrong with this. Then you wonder why the world hates you.
SOPA? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Debate continues on whether using the War Powers Resolution is effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in decisions that might get the United States involved in a significant military conflict."
I read the War Powers Resolution is also effective as a means of assuring congressional participation in Internet censorship .
Time for the voting public to purge this misguided house of government of all its privilege and narcissism.
I think It's more related (Score:5, Insightful)
To the penchant for destabilising democratically elected governments and installing puppet dictators in order to acquire resources and dominate regions militarily.
Cyberwarfare ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SOPA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, who needs SOPA when you have the US military to enforce royalty payments!
Yes, it's a new age of intellectual property imperialism! Except instead of the huge royal navies of England and France fighting pirates and collecting royalties on trade routes, we'll have the DoD DDoS attacks taking down all parties that don't pony up!
It's suiting for the US, much of whose wealth and economy is now based on imaginary assets, like patents and copyrights on, well, just about anything having to do with "popular" culture or business processes. What better way to make money for nothing than to have a piece of legal paper that says that people have to pay you money for doing ${thing}s? And then having a bunch of other people fund your military, the largest in the world, to enforce those payments?
Subjugation! Success!
"Interests" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Interests" is an interesting term. We have well defined (codified in law) ideas of who our allies and what our nation is, but interests can range anywhere from democracy to oil to bombing airplane manufacturing plants in Brazil and China to protect our (civilian) areospace industry.
Diplomatic cables have already revealed that we lean pretty heavily on our allies to buy Boeing and Locheed Martin products, both civilian and defense oriented. If anyone needs a reminder, we just "convinced" Japan to buy 150+ still on the drawing board F-35 stealth fighters, (things yet to fix: major fire hazards, lack of stealth, weak airframe, buggy software, bad aerodynamics) rather than the EuroFighter earlier this week, right after Kim Jong Ill died.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II
http://www.washingtonpost.com/japan-to-pick-lockheeds-f-35-as-new-stealth-fighter/2011/12/13/gIQAbuYUrO_story.html
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet somehow we made it a battlefield.
Re:Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Geneva Convention (Score:5, Insightful)
somebody in the u.s. hasn't been reading the geneva convention. if the U.S. is hell-bent on linking the words "cyber" and "warfare", then the U.S. had better be ready for the consequences. the consequences of "declaring war" on another country are very very simple: under the Geneva Convention, a declaration of war legitimises and grants the right for any citizen of the country being attacked to immediately take offensive action, no matter where they are, against citizens and against all soil of the aggressors.
in other words, should the United States respond with physical force against another country's citizens just because a computer which was wide open to the world (with 3 letter passwords), that is an "act of war", and the citizens of the country being attacked are automatically granted the right to take immediate offensive violent action against any United States Citizens or against any United States "property" and soil.
in other words, this is an incredibly stupid thing for the United States Government to be doing. especially given that many people in the United States Military have absolutely no idea what constitutes a cyber attack, and they certainly don't understand that 3 letter passwords are an invitation to go "cooeeee! i 0wn youuu!"
madness. absolute madness.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Network connectivity doesn't change human nature. When you move civilization onto the internet, you don't get a utopia, you just get better data transfer.
Re:Geneva Convention (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Congressional oversight my ass (Score:4, Insightful)
We warned you people that Bush's grubbing for power would come back and bite us in the ass later on. Once power is gained, it is seldom let go of.
We warned you that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.
Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex.
When will enough people listen and act?
Oh boy, here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
The nationalization and segmentation of Internet has begun. It was a nice place with no borders and equal for everyone. But of course, old power-greedy bastards has awoken and now want to subjugate everyone under their rule, claim "territories" that they own and build armies to fight with each other. And common folks as always are blinded with "patriotism" propaganda, while really are just used as a resource for some self-proclaimed sociopathic "leaders". Since the dawn of ages. Humanity, will you ever learn?
Re:Cyberwarfare ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Cyberwarfare is fiction.
Yes - at most it causes inconvenience.
When someone hacks into a computer and causes someone to die or destroys some military asset as a direct result of that hack, then I will consider it to be "warfare".
Until then, I will take this "cyber warfare" propaganda as just that - propaganda that will justify the spending of millions of dollars on projects run by people who have the political connections.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to the other nations that are already doing that, just without any formal declaration. I would be very surprised indeed if China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Israel and others weren't already engaging in offensive operations online.
OTOH, why let the likely truth prevent such bigoted trash talk from being posted.
Re:Screw effective. How about Constitutional? (Score:5, Insightful)
"The constitution does not define the wording of a declaration of war. "Yeah, nuke them if you want," is a completely valid declaration of war as much as "we the whateverith Congress decide as our second unanimous act (after our first act of giving ourselves pay raises next term) to declare war on Elbonia.""
Perhaps. But handing the decision-making power to the President is not a declaration of war of ANY kind. It is nothing more than abdication of responsibility.
Re:Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Geneva Convention (Score:4, Insightful)
First, the Geneva Convention never gives someone the right to take violent action against all of a nation's citizens. Noncombants are afforded protection under the conventions. You should cite which convention you have derived your information from. Since the basis of your argument is false, the rest does not matter. However, I will state that if the U.S. began treating cyberwarfare as actual war, then any physical force against another country would most likely be accompanied by attempting to sever the country's lines of communication as well. Besides, all this does is address the fact that China (et al) has been pursuing aggressive cyber attacks against foreign intelligence for some time.
Re:Offense to Defend? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed.
Life has been curious to me. When I was much younger, I was rabidly anti-drug, and considered the taking of one to mess with the clarity of thought. Having grown older, and been to college, I've found that it's very easy to be against something, when you've had no experience with it. Experience tends to teach us the flaws in our thinking.
As for this War on Terror, the story of the boy who cried wolf comes to mind. Quite a few people are milking the government right now with paranoid delusions of illusory enemies, offering solution after solution in bad faith, administering placebos or poison instead of medicine, congratulating each other as they plunder the public's wallet. Were I not dimly aware that I might be nearby when something truly terrible arrives, and the government is either tapped out or the populace apathetic, I might enjoy watching these people as they try to flee something unthinkable. Hopefully the weight of their ill-gotten proceeds will weigh them down, long enough for something like Mr. Market to catch up to them. Pity that karma does not have the accuracy that some of our laser-guided projectiles sport; I hate to think of how many people are suffering because of this nonsense.
Re:Cyberwarfare ? (Score:4, Insightful)
When someone hacks into a computer and causes someone to die or destroys some military asset as a direct result of that hack, then I will consider it to be "warfare"
Just to play devil's advocate for a minute:
That idea is very similar to the concept of "put the stop light in after someone gets killed at the intersection, and not before"
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the term human nature is thrown about too carelessly. Human nature would imply it's in the genes. Sure, the genes allow for war and all bad things, but how about the power of culture? I think the world of today is shaped more by culture and ideas, than by genes. We are not just monkeys. We can do what we think is right.
The powerful shape the world in a way that benefits them, but humanity as a whole wouldn't want this mess, I think. It's not the genes. It's history. The history of power, money and ideas, more than it is human nature. Culture and ideas we can change. Nature, not so much.
We can overcome any genes for rape, murder an oppression with some ideas of doing the right thing. Ideas will evolve. And the Internet should help accelerate that evolution.
Aren't we in the midst of a great "evolutionary leap"? It just doesn't show in our genes. It's our collective consciousness that is getting more saturated with truth. Some powerful players are of course against all this truth, but humanity can prevail, I think.