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Privacy may be a victim in cyberdefense plan
Obama's vow to protect civil liberties may be difficult to put into practice
WASHINGTON - A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns, as the Obama administration moves ahead on efforts to protect the nation from cyberattack and to prepare for possible offensive operations against adversaries’ computer networks.
President Obama has said that the new cyberdefense strategy he unveiled last month will provide protections for personal privacy and civil liberties. But senior Pentagon and military officials say that Mr. Obama’s assurances may be challenging to guarantee in practice, particularly in trying to monitor the thousands of daily attacks on security systems in the United States that have set off a race to develop better cyberweapons.
Much of the new military command’s work is expected to be carried out by the National Security Agency, whose role in intercepting the domestic end of international calls and e-mail messages after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, under secret orders issued by the Bush administration, has already generated intense controversy.
There is simply no way, the officials say, to effectively conduct computer operations without entering networks inside the United States, where the military is prohibited from operating, or traveling electronic paths through countries that are not themselves American targets.
The cybersecurity effort, Mr. Obama said at the White House last month, “will not — I repeat, will not — include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic.”
But foreign adversaries often mount their attacks through computer network hubs inside the United States, and military officials and outside experts say that threat confronts the Pentagon and the administration with difficult questions.
'Quandary'
Military officials say there may be a need to intercept and examine some e-mail messages sent from other countries to guard against computer viruses or potential terrorist action. Advocates say the process could ultimately be accepted as the digital equivalent of customs inspections, in which passengers arriving from overseas consent to have their luggage opened for security, tax and health reasons.
“The government is in a quandary,” said Maren Leed, a defense expert at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies who was a Pentagon special assistant on cyberoperations from 2005 to 2008.
Ms. Leed said a broad debate was needed “about what constitutes an intrusion that violates privacy and, at the other extreme, what is an intrusion that may be acceptable in the face of an act of war.”
In a recent speech, Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a chief architect of the new cyberstrategy, acknowledged that a major unresolved issue was how the military — which would include the National Security Agency, where much of the cyberwar expertise resides — could legally set up an early warning system.
Unlike a missile attack, which would show up on the Pentagon’s screens long before reaching American territory, a cyberattack may be visible only after it has been launched in the United States.
“How do you understand sovereignty in the cyberdomain?” General Cartwright asked. “It doesn’t tend to pay a lot of attention to geographic boundaries.”
For example, the daily attacks on the Pentagon’s own computer systems, or probes sent from Russia, China and Eastern Europe seeking chinks in the computer systems of corporations and financial institutions, are rarely seen before their effect is felt inside the United States.
New laws needed?
Some administration officials have begun to discuss whether laws or regulations must be changed to allow law enforcement, the military or intelligence agencies greater access to networks or Internet providers when significant evidence of a national security threat was found.
Ms. Leed said that while the Defense Department and related intelligence agencies were the only organizations that had the ability to protect against such cyberattacks, “they are not the best suited, from a civil liberties perspective, to take on that responsibility.”
Under plans being completed at the Pentagon, the new cybercommand will be run by a four-star general, much the way Gen. David H. Petraeus runs the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from Central Command in Tampa, Fla. But the expectation is that whoever is in charge of the new command will also direct the National Security Agency, an effort to solve the turf war between the spy agency and the military over who is in charge of conducting offensive operations.
While the N.S.A.’s job is chiefly one of detection and monitoring, the agency also possesses what Michael D. McConnell, the former director of national intelligence, called “the critical skill set” to respond quickly to cyberattacks. Yet the Defense Department views cyberspace as its domain as well, a new battleground after land, sea, air and space.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31338666/ns/politics-the_new_york_times/

Foreign media say Iran blocking coverage of protests
Several foreign news organisations complained Sunday that Iranian authorities were blocking their reporters from covering protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.
German public television channels ZDF and ARD said their reporters were not allowed to broadcast their reports, while the BBC said the signals of its Persian services were being jammed from Iran.
The Dubai-based Arab news channel Al-Arabiya in Tehran was forbidden from working for a week and Dutch broadcaster Nederland 2 said its journalist and cameraman were arrested and ordered to leave the country.
Foreign media converged in Iran to cover Friday's presidential election, whose official result sparked violent protests in Tehran after Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a landslide.
Violence erupted for a second day on Sunday as supporters of Ahmadinejad's closest challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi clashed with riot police. Mousavi denounced the election as a fraud and called for the vote to be annulled.
The editors in chief of German public television channels ZDF and ARD sent a letter to the Iranian ambassador in Berlin accusing Iranian authorities of barring their reporters from doing their work.
ARD correspondent Peter Mezger can no longer leave his hotel while ZDF journalist Halim Hosny and his colleagues have not been allowed to report on the events, their chief editors wrote.
"We see a breach of freedom of the press and democratic principles," their editors said in their letter.
Iranian authorities had already barred the journalists from filming and broadcasting their images in recent days, the editors said.
ARD and ZDF insisted that they would "continue to report on the events in Iran" in a "critical, fair and independent" manner.
"We would have liked to broadcast the story of our correspondent Halim Hosny, but the Iranian authorities forbade journalists from working," ZDF said in its nightly news programme.
The British Broadcasting Corporation said the satellites it uses for its Persian television and radio services had been affected since Friday by "heavy electronic jamming" which had become "progressively worse."
Satellite technicians had traced the interference to Iran, the BBC said.
BBC Arabic television and other language services had also experienced transmission problems, the corporation said.
"Any attempt to block BBC Persian television is wrong and against international treaties on satellite communication. Whoever is attempting the blocking should stop it now," said BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks.
"It seems to be part of a pattern of behaviour by the Iranian authorities to limit the reporting of the aftermath of the disputed election.
"In Tehran, (BBC world affairs editor) John Simpson and his cameraman were briefly arrested after they had filmed material for a piece," he added.
Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2 said NOVA journalist Jan Eikelboom and cameraman Dennis Hilgers, who had been in Iran for several days covering the election, were detained and ordered to leave the country.
They "were filming in front of the headquarters of Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main rival, when they were arrested by police," the channel said in a statement.
"They were pushed against a wall and their tapes were seized. Their filming permits were withdrawn and they have to leave the country immediately," it said.
The Arab news channel Al-Arabiya said that its correspondent, who has been in Tehran for the past four months, had been "informed verbally" of the decision to shut down his office for a week.
"We are not allowed to do any coverage. No reason was given, and there was no earlier warning," executive editor Nabil al-Khateeb told AFP. "I believe it is due to the current state of unrest."
The correspondent of Spanish public channel TVE said during a live broadcast Saturday that police had confiscated a video of one the protests.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c2159aa7c76722f087805420a820f0d8.451&show_article=1

Tax Man's Target: The Mobile Phone
The use of company-issued mobile phones could trigger new federal income taxes on millions of Americans as a "fringe benefit."
The Internal Revenue Service proposed employers assign 25% of an employee's annual phone expenses as a taxable benefit. Under that scenario, a worker in the 28% tax bracket, whose wireless device costs the company $1,500 a year, could see $105 in additional federal income tax.
The IRS, in a notice issued this week, said employees could avoid tax liability if they showed proof they used personal cellphones for nonbusiness calls during work hours. The agency also could decide on a ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124473141538306335.html

Stimulus Concession
Biden tells "Meet the Press" that "everyone guessed wrong" on the impact of the stimulus, economy was worse off than anyone thought.
Backs away from the estimate that the funds could create or save 3.5 million jobs, instead promises 600,000 by the end of the summer.
http://thepage.time.com/2009/06/14/stimulus-apologies/