Has U.S. Commited "ACT of WAR" against our Alies by Hacking into their systems to SPY? Pentagon: YES

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

Pentagon: Hack attacks can be act of war

Remember that position taken in 2011?

Obama administration released its own policy that put the world on notice that hack attacks directed against US assets might be met with military action.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/17/white_house_cyberspace_strategy/

But, according to our Ambassador, this hacking thing we do is no big deal, and the foreigners have no problem with it.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave!

I wonder if this has been brought up by our pukes in the M$M?

I doubt it, they are all too busy trying to throw stones at the whistleblower, and the journalist to worry about such insignificant issues like this.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

1. Guess Ill have to wait till morning before the talking points on this hot-potato are passed out

night all

[Live and Learn]

5. They are too busy celebrating Snowden's misery

on another thread to notice this one.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

29. good point

they can't wait for him to fall into the clutches of our national security state... creepy

[Romulus Quirinus]

30. Right? Right?

Even if you disagree with something, you shouldn't get so excited to see someone punished. It's looks ike the crowd that hung Saddam some days. Its disturbing.

[Rex]

2. Pentagon investigation forthcoming.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

39. It will be very interesting to see what Kerry comes back with to our alies

I think they are thinking "there goes my 4th of July holiday, the prick",

[Recursion]

3. In that words have meanings, no. (nt)

[HooptieWagon]

4. Our allies are racist libertarians.

We're spying on them to protect their freedoms. Anyway, its not really spying, we're just collecting data. And Bush did it too. They just hate Obama.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. You forgot the whole "this is proof that presidents/elections don't matter" part.

[great white snark]

21. Isn't that special, you've taken a RW meme and called it your own.

"Anyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist" was started by Repubs the day after the election. Idiotic then and even more so now.

Now the ever persecuted detractors from the left have substituted "racist" with "Libertarian" even though NOBODY has said "Anyone/everyone who disagrees with Obama is a Libertarian."

I'd ask you to please stop spreading these falsehoods but I expect you'd accuse me of censoring you.

[HooptieWagon]

40. Take your complaint up with the BOG.

If you were paying attention, they've accused everyone opposing massive surveillence of being racists, libertarian Rand Paul supporters, and much more.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

41. The racist accusations against DUers was really a low point on here

But it looks like that one has finally died down, but certainly not the others.

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Wow...this post is incredibly stupid

First of all, if you're referring to the revelations of spying against the EU, that was not hacking.

Also, in your post it says the United States MIGHT consider hacking to be an act of war resulting in military action. This does not mean the US considers all spying against the US to be an act of war.

We already know countries like China conduct massive espionage operations against the United States. Funny thing, the US hasn't gone to war over it.

Go figure.

[SoapBox]

9. Thank you!

It's like people have no clue that this goes on all over the place.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

11. too funny

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

10. Actually, we HACKED into their systems, to install our recording devices.

And no one hacked into ALL of our digital communications (except us, I hope) that we know of, the Chinese, and others seem to be more traditional in their spying (e.g. targeted).

Go figure.

[KharmaTrain]

15. And You Know This How???

...you don't think the Chinese and other governments aren't involved into hacking (also known as spying) into American computers? Then I've got some quicksand to sell ya. It's how country's feel they are protecting their interests...or furthering them. Ya think the Chinese get the designs to almost every American product out of clear air? Computer hacking is as old as the first modem...cyberwarfare is very real and fought by computers every day...U.S., Russian, Chinese, British, French...private and government. Welcome to the brave new world...

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

16. The Edward Snowden story has been all over the news for weeks now.

and i never said other gov were not engaged in spying, too... just that theirs are more traditional in the sense that they are more targeted when compared to ours.

[KharmaTrain]

17. And You Know This How??

...I'm very aware of the Snowden story...I just don't jump in on every post about it. You claim other nations use more "traditional" methods of spying...I'm just curious how you know such things? TIA...

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

23. From the TOP SECRET documents released, as well as the first hand accounts by former NSA employees

If other countries were doing the UNPRECEDENTED mass spying that we are doing, 1. they would not be able to support their 'welfare' states, and 2. the US would be jumping up and down about it.

[KharmaTrain]

34. All Speculation...

...thank you!

[Romulus Quirinus]

36. Which is speculation?

That any other country would have budget problems if they spent 50 billion US on intelligence gathering, or that we would jump up and down if we caught them tapping our citizens in the same way?

[KharmaTrain]

38. All Assumptions...

...cellphone and telephone companies in foreign countries keep phone meta records similar to American phone companies...in many countries the phone company is owned by the government. How cozy is that? All we know that is proven...not some speculation via Snowden...is that the NSA can gather meta data of what appears on your phone bill...data that has long been collected by your phone company. It requires a warrant, which it didn't prior to the passing of the 2007 FISA act and from all that's been reported the law has been followed.

That said...I've been a strong opponent to the Patriot act and am not happy in how intrusive the government has become in phone and internet traffic, but I'm also a far greater opponent of the intrusion corporates make into our lives. I'm far less concerned with some spook checking to see who I've called and when than some doofus at a bank who messes up my credit report that can have some real world implications in my life...or sell my personal data that is then used to spam me with stuff I have no interest in.

All countries have some kind of surveillance internally and externally. You don't think the Chinese, whose government censors the internet, hasn't been involved in all sorts of spying on its own citizens foreign and domestic (meaning those residing in the U.S.). We don't know the extent of how countries spy on one another and what Snowden has revealed is, as many others have noted, factually, is nothing that hasn't been known publicly to those who paid attention to the FISA hearings back when the bill was enacted...the rest of his narrative remains to be proven...as I've said, all speculation.

Cheers...

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

43. 26 Sens.: NSA is relying on a "secret body of law" to collect massive amounts of data on US citizens

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3142617

BTW: You should be waaaay more concerned about some 'spook' messing up then some service provider without arrest authority.

Think about it...

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

37. First hand accounts, and TOP SECRET docs are far from 'speculation' and valid in our courts of law.

Last edited Tue Jul 2, 2013, 12:55 PM - Edit history (1)

Unless you have a different definition of 'Speculation' than the rest of us

[Romulus Quirinus]

31. Because very few countries have the ability install taps on undersea cables and

to bully large-scale ISPs into sharing data.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

33. I wonder what percentage of the www backbone is owned/operated by US firms?

And you make a good point, not many countries have the leverage we do to demand access to the ones we dont, and then finally, we can just hack into the ones who refuse, or we don't won't them to know we are doing it in the first place.

[Romulus Quirinus]

35. Yep! Also, our reach scales with our budget, which is vast compared to anyone else in the world.

Good point on the backbones. The geography of the internet is strongly in our favor, as well.

[snooper2]

42. "taps on undersea cables"

LOL

Ever splice a piece of fiber before?

[Romulus Quirinus]

44. Yes.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

45. what does that even mean?

[snooper2]

46. google is your friend

Ever use a passive tap before (passive meaning no electronics)

They are pretty cool. We usually get them from NetOptics-

You have to be sure you get the split right though so you don't add too much insertion loss onto the circuit. You don't know this stuff?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

47. are you another NSA wannabee?

There are a few on DU

[snooper2]

49. are you lacking education on the subject at hand?

Or you just go on message boards and scream truthy to power as a pastime?

[nashville_brook]

51. google is YOUR friend - LOL

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa

GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications
Exclusive: British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

53. excellent link

thanks for sharing

[snooper2]

57. Dude, I have put taps on fiber optic cables myself

You have any idea how many strands of fiber run through London alone?

Why don't they just release the actual slide so we can read it for ourselves like the 117K figure we learned is the sum of the NSA targets?

Oh, and this started with divers putting a tap on undersea fiber routes LOL-

I'm sure Level 3 would have caught wind of that , or Global Crossing, or AT&T, or or or



"secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic"
Really, LOL

I guess the Guardian thinks the Internet is just a series of tubes like half the rest of the population



As an aside, I recommend NetOptics, they have quality taps- small footprint too, you can get eight in 1 RU. It literally has a glass prism inside that "splits" the light TX & RX so one stream goes out each monitor port. Be sure you know what the light level tolerances are on your receivers at each end though. That will tell you if you need a 50/50, 60/40, 70/30

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

59. ah, huh

[snooper2]

60. Happy 4th!

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Of course it was hacking

The German magazine Der Spiegel reported at the weekend that some of the bugging operations in Brussels targeting the EU's Justus Lipsius building – a venue for summit and ministerial meetings in the Belgian capital – were directed from within Nato headquarters nearby.

The US intelligence service codename for the bugging operation targeting the EU mission at the United Nations is "Perdido". Among the documents leaked by Snowden is a floor plan of the mission in midtown Manhattan. The methods used against the mission include the collection of data transmitted by implants, or bugs, placed inside electronic devices, and another covert operation that appears to provide a copy of everything on a targeted computer's hard drive.

The eavesdropping on the EU delegation to the US, on K Street in Washington, involved three different operations targeted on the embassy's 90 staff. Two were electronic implants and one involved the use of antennas to collect transmissions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/nsa-leaks-us-bugging-european-allies

[DeSwiss]

8. Yes they have committed an Act of War.....

...well, at least they are considered Acts of War by the same White House which committed these Acts of War. And, without the consent of Congress I might add. But who gives a shit about constitutional formalities these days?

from Forbes Magazine:

(Conclusions from a WH commissioned report)
''States have an inherent right to self-defense that may be triggered by certain aggressive acts in cyberspace…. Certain hostile acts conducted through cyberspace could compel actions under the commitments we have with our military treaty partners…. When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would any other threat to our country.'' link

...as well as the Pentagon:

from the Wall Street Journal:

''The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.'' link

- Although I'm relatively certain that they never meant for these ''Cyber-attacks-can-be-an-Act-of-War'' policies and reports to apply to US. I mean, they're our rules, right??? We're the ones making them up. We can make them apply any which way we want......

K&R

[KoKo]

22. +1 nice links...

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

24. thanks for the links DeSwiss

I wonder if this will cause the Pentagon and/or admin to change this policy at all

[DeSwiss]

26. No, it won't.

''Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.''~Frederick Douglass

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

27. Well, like your quote says, it will if there is a demand for it... It seems the rest of the world &

Americans are demanding changes.

I understand that they won't do it by themselves, but hopefully there will be enough of a demand for change that they will be forced to.

[Romulus Quirinus]

32. This resembles how a physical system will naturally settle into the lowest possible energy state. nt

[treestar]

12. So when do our allies declare war?

On us? They have the right to defend themselves, no? Are you hoping they will? I think you'll be waiting a long time.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

14. I doubt they will since this is a U.S. policy

I am hoping just the opposite... that we change our agressive totalitarian ways so that there may be more peace in the world, and less of a reason for anyone to target us.

[Savannahmann]

13. I take a night off and miss something pretty darned good.

Isn't that the way it always goes?

The apologists say that everyone does it. Yet, when it happens to us, we get all bent out of shape. It's interesting that the apologists are so quick to defend our actions, and downplay it as business as usual, while we portray it as anything but business as usual when we find out we've been hacked or spied upon.

There is an old saying, the Golden Rule. Treat others as you would have them treat you. Perhaps we are being spied upon because we are so busy spying on everyone and anyone. We're so convinced that shadowy forces lurk in dark places that we don't bother to ask how much of it is institutional paranoia, and how much is real?

I mentioned before, that these kinds of programs would normally not result in a request for an explanation, they used to result in a demand for an acceptable answer, with a time limit. Ultimatums are what usually follows such actions. Wars have begun over such things. Look at our intelligence activity. Stuxnet, the intent to purposely harm computers of a foreign power. Hello, that is sabotage, and that is a cause for war historically speaking.

Spying on the offices of allies. Don't tell me everyone does it. If you can't trust your friends, friends who have sided with us time and time again through history, then you don't have any friends. Perhaps that is the first question you should ask yourself, why don't you have any friends?

[ProSense]

20. You know what

"The apologists say that everyone does it. Yet, when it happens to us, we get all bent out of shape."

..."the apologists" aren't doing: trying to justify an "act of war."

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

25. I have no idea what you are trying to say here, can you restate

for better clarity

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. An op-ed on CNN considered it, before the spying on the EU revelations:

Has U.S. started an Internet war?
...
Longtime NSA watcher James Bamford reached the same conclusion in his recent profile of Alexander and the U.S. Cyber Command (written before the Snowden revelations). He discussed some of the many cyberweapons the U.S. purchases:

"According to Defense News' C4ISR Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek, Endgame also offers its intelligence clients -- agencies like Cyber Command, the NSA, the CIA, and British intelligence -- a unique map showing them exactly where their targets are located. Dubbed Bonesaw, the map displays the geolocation and digital address of basically every device connected to the Internet around the world, providing what's called network situational awareness. The client locates a region on the password-protected web-based map, then picks a country and city -- say, Beijing, China. Next the client types in the name of the target organization, such as the Ministry of Public Security's No. 3 Research Institute, which is responsible for computer security -- or simply enters its address, 6 Zhengyi Road. The map will then display what software is running on the computers inside the facility, what types of malware some may contain, and a menu of custom-designed exploits that can be used to secretly gain entry. It can also pinpoint those devices infected with malware, such as the Conficker worm, as well as networks turned into botnets and zombies -- the equivalent of a back door left open...

"The buying and using of such a subscription by nation-states could be seen as an act of war. 'If you are engaged in reconnaissance on an adversary's systems, you are laying the electronic battlefield and preparing to use it' wrote Mike Jacobs, a former NSA director for information assurance, in a McAfee report on cyberwarfare. 'In my opinion, these activities constitute acts of war, or at least a prelude to future acts of war.' The question is, who else is on the secretive company's client list? Because there is as of yet no oversight or regulation of the cyberweapons trade, companies in the cyber-industrial complex are free to sell to whomever they wish. "It should be illegal,' said the former senior intelligence official involved in cyberwarfare. 'I knew about Endgame when I was in intelligence. The intelligence community didn't like it, but they're the largest consumer of that business.'"

That's the key question: How much of what the United States is currently doing is an act of war by international definitions? Already we're accusing China of penetrating our systems in order to map "military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis." What PPD-20 and Snowden describe is much worse, and certainly China, and other countries, are doing the same.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/18/opinion/schneier-cyberwar-policy/index.html

[SamKnause]

28. Hacking

Did you not get the memo ?

The U.S. is above the law.

Nothing the U.S. does is illegal.

I hope countries all over the globe are getting sick and tired of the U.S. trying to police the world and excluding themselves from the rules they expect others to follow !!!!!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

48. But..but..we did it LEGALLY! We passed a secret law that says we can.

The rest of the world are just ingrates who don't appreciate our friendly, compassionate, efforts, of spying on them for their own good.

[nashville_brook]

50. k and r

[indepat]

52. How convenient it is to have the exclusive franchise as maker of the rules that all must follow?

[Generic Brad]

54. Spying agencies are engaged in espionage?

I am shocked beyond belief!

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

55. Welcome to the minority

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

56. On an UNPRECEDENTED scale, and it is SUSPICIONLESS spying on Americans as well

You should be shocked beyond belief.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

58. Now they appear to be interfering with right to travel of heads of state

Creepy

[liberal_at_heart]

61. The US only cares about international law when it suits them. It's not illegal when we do it. It's

only illegal if someone else does it to us.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

62. We do seem to have a history of that