Obama Orders US to Draw Up Overseas Target List for Cyber-Attacks [View all]

[Hissyspit]

Source: Guardian (UK) / Glenn Greenwald and Ewen McAskill

Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks

Exclusive: Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to 'advance US objectives around the world'

• Read the secret presidential directive here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/07/obama-cyber-directive-full-text

Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill
guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 June 2013 15.06 EDT

Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals.

The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) "can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging".

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The directive also contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US, though it specifies that no such domestic operations can be conducted without the prior order of the president, except in cases of emergency.

The aim of the document was "to put in place tools and a framework to enable government to make decisions" on cyber actions, a senior administration official told the Guardian.

The administration published some declassified talking points from the directive in January 2013, but those did not mention the stepping up of America's offensive capability and the drawing up of a target list.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/obama-china-targets-cyber-overseas