Cyber warfare has increased importance in today’s security questions, and Leslie Harris, in her blog post for the Huffington Post, NSA’s Cyber Power Grab expresses her worry that the proposed SECURE_IT Act will allow military organizations to infringe on the privacy of ordinary people.
Leslie Harris is the President and CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology and has testified before Congress on matters related to technology. In her post, Harris seems to be targeting a general audience who has very little if any knowledge about the NSA (National Security Agency) and the “information sharing” proposed by the SECURE_IT Act. Harris claims that this Act, proposed by a group of Republican Senators including John McCain, would give a great deal of liberty to the NSA regarding what types and how much information they could access. Her argument is that the new bill “authorizes sharing that goes beyond what is truly necessary to describe a cyber threat or to engage in self- defense…” She asserts that the SECURE_IT Act does not create explicit limitations on what types of information that would be acquired from the “private sector.”
Harris is obviously no fool. She is, after all, President and CEO for the Center for Democracy & Technology and has experience as a lobbyist; thus she understands concerns that businesses would have with the “sharing of information.” Yet her post is targeted towards the average Joe, not to the well-informed business head. She introduces two “cyber security bills,” SECURE_IT, and the Lieberman-Collins bill; both she claims grant too much power to the government to “share cyber attack information.” She does not explain what exactly the two bills propose that makes them “too much,” nor does she even explain what she means by “sharing information.” While that might be perfectly all right for some one well informed in the area, no average citizen will understand what she is talking about. In order to scare her public readers into believing this proposed bill is a serious threat she uses scare tactics saying “What could be shared under the Republican bill? How about images from the drones that the FAA will soon be licensing to conduct private surveillance in the U.S….” and continues in on the “black helicopter” mentality by asserting that the government will abuse its power by getting surveillance footage of people entering “sensitive locations” like sports stadiums and airports. First of all where did this assertion come from? There is a link to a post on what appears to be her own company's website asserting that upcoming rulemaking action by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration, which deals with civilian air control) will enable widespread licensing of civilian drones. (Granted, such drones would be privately owned since the military would not need a license from the FAA.) But initiation of a regulatory structure for civilian drones is no indication there will soon be swarms of private drones monitoring us. Harris simply does not substantiate her claims with direct evidence nor does she present anything more specific as a problem than broad authorization for “information sharing.” I think that both evidence and specific examples would be necessary both to clarify and to substantiate her stated concerns.
I believe that the idea behind the bill that she takes issue with, is to heighten the government’s ability to respond to and or prevent “cyber-attacks” (or in other terms, sophisticated hacks or breaches in secure networks) in both “private” and government sectors. The reason the need for better cyber-security has been a subject of popular debate recently is due to numerous, well-publicized major breaches by hackers over the last few years including the hack of global intelligence company Stratfor that involved information from clients including the US Defense Department, the Army, and the Air force.
Obviously the threat is real and obscuring that threat by claiming that it is a government attempt to spy on its own people comes across as simply cyber-paranoia. If there are issues to be raised about the proposed bills related to civil liberties or economic considerations, those issues deserve a more comprehensive and convincing airing.
For more information about the two bills, the SECURE_IT Act and the Lieberman-Collins bill please read Cybersecurity Bills Duel Over Rules for Firms from The Wall Street Journal by Siobhan Gorman.
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