NSA Refuses To Release Secret Obama Directive On Cybersecurity

Order may allow military takeover of internet
http://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/EPIC-NSA-PPD20-Ltr-11-14-12.pdf

The National Security Agency has refused to release details of a secret presidential directive which experts believe could allow the military and intelligence agencies to operate on the networks of private companies, such as Google and Facebook.
As we reported last week, an article in the Washington Post, cited several US officials saying that Obama signed off on the secret cybersecurity order, believed to widely expand NSA’s spying authorities, in mid-October.
“The new directive is the most extensive White House effort to date to wrestle with what constitutes an “offensive” and a “defensive” action in the rapidly evolving world of cyberwar and cyberterrorism.” the report states.
In response to the move, lawyers with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (PDF) demanding that the Obama administration make public the text of the directive.
The NSA responded to the FOIA request this week with a statement arguing that it does not have to release the document because it is a confidential presidential communication and it is classified.
“Disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” the NSA response reads.
“Because the document is currently and properly classified, it is exempt from disclosure,” the statement notes.
Attorneys for EPIC say they plan to appeal and force the text of the secret directive to be publicly disclosed.
“We believe that the public hasn’t been able to involve themselves in the cybersecurity debate, and the reason they can’t involve themselves is because they don’t have the right amount of information,” EPIC attorney Amie Stepanovich said.
In an official statement to Congress earlier this year, EPIC explained that the NSA was a “black hole for public information about cybersecurity.”
EPIC is also involved in ongoing lawsuits involving the secret nature of the NSA’s relationship with search engine giant Google, and a similar secretive presidential directive issued in 2008 regarding the NSA’s cybersecurity authority.
As we have also noted, the latest secret directive appears to also legally enable the US military and the NSA to use newly created computer viruses to attack any organisation or country deemed to be a cyber threat. Obama has already shown the willingness to carry out such attacks, as new details surrounding the 2010 stuxnet attack revealed earlier this year.
Key Reading:
Obama’s Secret Directive On Cybersecurity Prompts Lawsuit
Privacy Watchdog Presses Court On NSA/Google Partnership
Department Of Justice Wants Court To Keep Google/NSA Partnership Secret
Feds Admit NSA Spying Violated 4th Amendment
 http://epic.org/privacy/cybersecurity/EPIC-NSA-PPD20-Ltr-11-14-12.pdf
 

Obama’s Secret Directive Paves Way For Continued Military Cyber Offensive

Administration has long been attacking other nations with malware viruses that are also infecting, compromising US infrastructure

Following yesterday’s defeat of the draconian  cybersecurity legislation in the Senate, it was revealed that back in mid October, president Obama signed off on a secret directive that will enable the US military to use newly created computer viruses to attack any organisation or country deemed to be a cyber threat. The president has already proved the willingness to carry out such attacks, as new details surrounding the 2010 stuxnet attack revealed earlier this year.
The Washington Post cited several US officials speaking under anonymity in a report on the development last night.
“The new directive is the most extensive White House effort to date to wrestle with what constitutes an “offensive” and a “defensive” action in the rapidly evolving world of cyberwar and cyberterrorism.” the report states.
“What it does, really for the first time, is it explicitly talks about how we will use cyber-operations,” a senior administration official said. “Network defense is what you’re doing inside your own networks. . . Cyber-operations is stuff outside that space, and recognizing that you could be doing that for what might be called defensive purposes.”
“An example of a defensive cyber-operation that once would have been considered an offensive act, for instance, might include stopping a computer attack by severing the link between an overseas server and a targeted domestic computer.” the report continues.
Essentially, in the same way the Bush administration employed terms such as “pre-emptive” when considering the invasion of Iraq, the Obama administration has shrouded it’s cyber policies in language that legally allows the military to go on the offensive – except this time the battle ground is cyberspace, which the Pentagon has defined as another military domain to be dominated.
The Washington Post even acknowledges that the Stuxnet virus was developed by the US in conjunction with Israel and was unleashed on Iran in 2010. Remarkably, however, it spins this fact on its head suggesting that “If an adversary should turn a similar virus against U.S. computer systems, whether public or private, the government needs to be ready to preempt or respond.”
As we initially reported in September 2010, the evidence suggested that the Stuxnet virus, designed to damage centrifuges at Iran’s nuclear facilities, was created and deployed by the US and Israel.
The idea was immediately branded a wild conspiracy theory by sections of the corporate media, who pinned the blame on Russia or China, before it was finally revealed in January 2011 by The New York Times that the wild “conspiracy theorists” were actually spot on.
The newspaper quoted intelligence and military experts as saying Israel has tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, which apparently shut down a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in November and helped delay its ability to make its first nuclear weapons, reported AFP.
The virus caused extensive damage to the Bushehr reactor, leading to the risk of a new Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster, according to Russian officials.
In June of this year, it was revealed in a new book citing senior Washington sources that Stuxnet formed part of a “wave” of digital attacks on Iran code named “Olympic Games”. According to the anonymous officials, the virus was created with the assistance of a secret Israeli intelligence unit. It was Obama himself who gave the order to unleash the cyber attack on Iran. The president also decided not to shut the program down when it was known that it had been compromised.
Of course, the virus escaped onto the internet and has spread around the world, exposing the program. It was reported this week that large companies in the US, including Oil giants Chevron, saw their systems hit by Stuxnet. Computer experts believe that a “programming error” was responsible for the spread of the worm, yet many believe that a more sinister plot was afoot, such as a potential false flag operation, to be blamed on Iran, or an effort to corrupt the free internet.
The Washington Post also reported earlier this year, that the United States and Israel were also responsible for jointly developing the Flame virus, a huge malware assault that monitored Iran’s computer networks.
Researchers at Kaspersky Labs, announced that the Russian cyber security software company discovered a similarity between a subset of the code used in Flame and code used in the Stuxnet virus.
In September, it was revealed that three more new viruses had been created by the US and deployed in Lebanon and Iran to conduct espionage. Researchers working for both Kaspersky and Symantec separately discovered distinct similarities to Stuxnet and the closely related Flame virus.
The fact that these viruses have been pinpointed as potential threats to US government and private infrastructure, underscores the certainty that the US has sought to exploit the threat of cyber-attacks launched by their own cybersecurity departments.
We have seen a constant push by the executive and legislative branches to censor and regulate the Internet domestically in the name of cybersecurity.
Obama’s newly revealed “secret directive”, and his impending executive order on cybersecurity merely rubber stamp and continue the all out offensive that his administration and the intelligence and military outfits under his command have been pursuing for some time.

Computer Experts Discover Flame and Stuxnet 

If research conducted by Kaspersky Labs is correct, the Flame virus is related to a previous malware virus developed by Israel and the United States.

Alexander Gostev, an expert at Kaspersky Labs, said in an email that the Russian cyber security software company discovered a similarity between a subset of the code used in Flame and code used in the Stuxnet virus.
Stuxnet was developed collaboratively between Israel and the United States for the explicit purpose of disabling computer networks in Iran, although Israeli intelligence denies this, according to Mossad agents who say they created the malware and Obama is taking credit for unleashing it against Iran’s fledgling nuclear program as propaganda in his re-election bid.
According to author David E. Sanger, Obama decided to accelerate cyberattacks initiated during the Bush administration. Sanger says the project’s codename was Olympic Games and it began in 2006.
Flame is described as the most sophisticated malware to date. After it infecting a Microsoft Windows computer, it can record audio and keyboard activity, take screenshots and monitor network traffic. Flame can record Skype conversations and grab data via Bluetooth from nearby devices like cellphones.
Like Stuxnet, Flame was specifically deployed on computer systems in the Middle East. Kaspersky’s research reveals that “a huge majority of targets” were within Iran.
“Currently there are three known classes of players who develop malware and spyware: hacktivists, cybercriminals and nation states,” Kaspersky’s chief malware expert Vitaly Kamluk told the BBC in late May.
“Flame is not designed to steal money from bank accounts. It is also different from rather simple hack tools and malware used by the hacktivists. So by excluding cybercriminals and hacktivists, we come to conclusion that it most likely belongs to the third group… The geography of the targets and also the complexity of the threat leaves no doubt about it being a nation-state that sponsored the research that went into it.”
Over the last few years, the U.S. government has hyped an emerging cyber threat in near apocalyptic terms and the establishment media has echoed the supposed threat incessantly. The so-called defense industry – the military-industrial complex president Eisenhower warned about as he left office – has exploited the cyber threat and turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry.
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and related defense and tech companies have vigorously lobbied the federal government about “growing cyberthreats to national security and corporate America, but they also make millions of dollars each year selling a variety of cybersecurity programs, tools and solutions to government and business,” Politico reported on May 30.
Israel and the United States – the CIA and Mossad – represent the vanguard of the emerging cyber security threat. Considering the history of government and its array of clandestine and self-serving false flag attacks, this reality is hardly surprising. It demonstrates that like al-Qaeda, the cyber threat is designed to create a crisis that can only be addressed by government and the military industrial complex.