Air Force Guards Cyberspace

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb () cs columbia edu>
Date: December 10, 2005 4:57:47 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: Jim Warren <jwarren () mail well com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Air Force Guards Cyberspace

In message <681774D0-AE80-49DA-BA92-9F5825B43314 () farber net>, David  
Farber writ
es:
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Jim Warren <jwarren () mail well com>
> Date: December 10, 2005 1:48:11 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Cc: Jean Armour Polly <mom () netmom com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Air Force Guards Cyberspace
>
> Well ... I guess that's just one more Bush-administration violation
> of the Posse Comitatus Act, that prohibited using the military to
> conduct civilian law-enforcement functions.  At what point should we
> begin to consider ourselves a (so to speak) "military police"  
> state? ;-)


This comment may be a bit unfair.  If we assume that various nations --
including the US -- were to engage in "cyberwarfare", it arguably is a
military mission.  The Reuters story
(http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=270419 
+06-Dec-2005+RTRS&srch=Cyberwar+Mission)
specifically speaks of the statement in these terms:

         The United States electronically jabbed Serbian computer
        networks during the 78-day NATO bombing campaign over Kosovo
        in 1999, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, then the top U.S. military
        officer said.

        "We only used our capability to a very limited degree," Shelton,
        then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on October 7, 1999.

                --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb




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