National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 Authorizes Cyber Warfare Against American Ci... - 0 views
-
In the midst of the holiday season Congress decided to pass the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 or NDAA. The bill was later signed into law by President Obama with little if any fanfare.
-
The NDAA contains a number of highly questionable sections that run contrary to the principles articulated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, language contained in the bill appears to authorize cyber warfare operations against the American people.
-
All of this is even more concerning when one considers that the NDAA also has a lot of new cyber warfare initiatives. Section 931 through Section 942 contains a bunch of crazy stuff dealing with the world of cyber warfare..Section 932 authorizes the creation of a position known as The Principal Cyber Advisor which will be responsible for supervising offensive and defensive cyber warfare activities. Obviously this position would not be created unless the federal government is intending upon involving itself in both offensive and defensive cyber warfare well into the future. Section 933 instructs the Secretary of Defense to conduct a broad mission analysis of the government’s cyber warfare capabilities. The required analysis will focus primarily on how they will manage, increase and enhance their personnel assigned to cyber warfare operations. It even disallows the reduction of cyber warfare personnel assigned to the Air National Guard.
- ...2 more annotations...
-
Section 936 requests the Secretary of Defense to strengthen outreach and threat awareness programs for small businesses. This is allegedly to assist businesses that are awarded contracts by the Department of Defense to understand cyber threats, develop plans to protect intellectual property and networks of such businesses. Realistically, this section appears to give the Department of Defense the authority to mandate all sorts of cyber security requirements on small businesses that they do transactions with. The language of the section makes it sound as if they will be doing these small businesses a favor when the opposite appears to be the case.Section 940 authorizes the President to establish a process and policy to control the proliferation of cyber weapons through law enforcement activities, financial means, diplomatic engagement and pretty much any other means that the President considers appropriate. This would also include potential private industry participation in the initiative. The objective of the process is to suppress the trade of so-called cyber tools that could be used for criminal, terrorist or military activities. The term cyber weapon is not explicitly defined in the section so this could be considered almost anything be it software or hardware that they declare could potentially be used for a nefarious purpose. Even something like bit torrent and torrent related applications could be considered cyber weapons since copyrighted material is consistently transferred back and forth using these tools. As a result, the use of these tools could potentially fall under the classification of criminal activity. Once again we have the President being given expansive powers from Congress with its extremely broad use of language in the bill.
-
Section 941 directs the president to establish an interagency policy to deter adversaries in cyberspace. The word adversaries is yet again not specifically defined in the section so this could also mean almost anything. With many American citizens not trusting the United States government this could mean a policy to deter or stifle anyone from political opponents to protesters who voice their disgust on the Internet.Overall, between the records collection initiative and the immense cyber warfare planning that is outlined in the NDAA it is becoming painfully clear that the United States government is turning the Internet into a battlefield.