Cyber attacks will raise similar questions, but the stakes will be even higher. Is a hacker attempting to steal money working on his own or for a terrorist group, or is he essentially a front for an enemy state eager to take down the U.S.? As Kelly Jackson Higgins, senior editor at the information security blog Dark Reading, reminds us, "Hackers posing as other hackers can basically encourage conflict among other nations or organizations, experts say, and sit back and watch."
Expanding Presidential Fiat: National security professionals like Defense Secretary Panetta are already encouraging another cyber development that will mimic the war on terror. Crucial decisions, they argue, should be the president's alone, leaving Congress and the American people out in the cold. President Bush, of course, reserved the right to determine who was an enemy combatant. President Obama has reserved the right to choose individuals for drone assassination on his own.
Now, an ever less checked-and-balanced executive is going to be given war powers in cyber space. In fact, we know that this is already the case, that the last two administrations have launched the first state cyber war in history -- against Iran and its nuclear program. Going forward, the White House is likely to be left with the power of deciding who is a cyber attacker, and when and how such enemies should be attacked. In Panetta's words, "If we detect an imminent threat of attack that will cause significant, physical destruction in the United States or kill American citizens, we need to have the option to take action against those who would attack us to defend this nation when directed by the president."
Given the complex and secretive world of cyber attacks and cyber war, who is going to cry foul when the president alone makes such a decision? Who will even know?
Secrecy Creep: While government officials are out in full force warning of the incipient cyber threat to our way of life, it's becoming ever clearer that the relationship between classified information, covert activities, and what the public can know is being further challenged by the new cyber world. In the war on terror years, a cult of government secrecy has spread, while Obama administration attacks on government leakers have reached new heights. On the other hand, Julian Assange and Wikileaks made the ability to access previously classified information a household premise.
So the attempt to create an aura of secrecy around governmental acts is on the rise and yet government secrets seem ever more at risk. For example, the U.S. intended to keep the Stuxnet virus, launched anonymously against Iranian nuclear facilities, a secret. Not only did the attacks themselves become public knowledge, but eventually the American-Israeli ownership of the attack leaked out as well. The old adage "the truth will out" certainly seems alive today and yet the governmental urge for secrecy still remains ascendant.
The question is: Will there be a heightened call -- however futile -- for increased secrecy and the ever more draconian punishment of leakers, as has been the case in the war on terror? Will the strong arm of government threaten, in an ever more draconian manner, the media, leakers, and those demanding transparency in the name of exposing lawless policies -- as has happened with CIA leaker John Kiriakou, New York Times reporter James Risen, and others?
Facing the Cyber Age
When it comes to issues like access to information and civil liberties protections, it could very well be that the era of Big Brother is almost upon us, whether we like it or not, and that fighting against it is obsolete behavior. On the other hand, perhaps we're heading into a future in which the government will have to accept that it cannot keep secrets as it once did. Whatever the case, most of us face enormous unknowns when it comes to how the cyber world, cyber dangers, and also heightened cyber fears will affect both the nation's security and our liberties.
On the eve of the presidential election, it is noteworthy that neither presidential candidate has had the urge to discuss cyber security lately. And yet the U.S. has launched a cyber war and has seemingly recently experienced the first case of cyber blowback. The websites of several of the major banks were attacked last month, presumably by Iran, interrupting online access to accounts.
With so little reliable information in the public sphere and so many potential pitfalls, both Obama and Romney seem to have decided that it's just not worth their while to raise the issue. In this, they have followed Congress's example. The failure to pass regulatory legislation this year on the subject revealed a bipartisan unwillingness of our representatives to expose themselves to political risk when it comes to cyber legislation.
Whether officials and policymakers are willing to make the tough decisions or not, cyber vulnerabilities are more of a reality than was the threat of sleeper cells after 9/11. It may be a stretch to go from cynicism and distrust in the face of color-coded threat levels to the prospect of cyber war, but it's one that needs to be taken.
Given what we know about fear and the destructive reactions it can produce, it would be wise to jumpstart the protections of law, personal liberties, and governmental accountability. Whoever our next president may be, the cyber age is upon us, carrying with it a new threat to liberty in the name of security. It's time now -- before either an actual attack or a legitimate fear of such an attack -- to protect what's so precious in American life, our liberties.
Karen Greenberg is the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, a TomDispatch regular, and the author of The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First One Hundred Days, as well as the editor of The Torture Debate in America. Research assistance for this article was provided by Jason Burke and Martin West.
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Copyright 2012 Karen J. Greenberg
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