That's what concerns me most. It only takes one idiot...
Posted on 11/20/2012 5:51:33 PM PST by Founding Father
The National Security Agency has shot down a Freedom of Information Act request for details about an elusive presidential order that may allow the government to deploy the military within the United States for the supposed sake of cybersecurity.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reports on Tuesday that their recent FOIA request for information about a top-secret memo signed last month by US President Barack Obama has been rejected [PDF]. Now attorneys for EPIC say they plan to file an appeal to get to the bottom of Presidential Policy Directive 20.
Although the executive order has been on the books for a month now, only last week did details emerge about the order after the Washington Post reported that Pres. Obama’s signature to the top-secret directive could allow the White House to send in recruits from the Pentagon to protect America’s cyber-infrastructure.
Because Presidential Policy Directive 20 is classified, the exact wording of the elusive document has been a secret kept only by those with first-hand knowledge of the memo. For their November 14 article, the Post spoke with sources that saw the document to report that the directive “effectively enables the military to act more aggressively to thwart cyberattacks on the nation’s web of government and private computer networks.”
In response to the Post’s report, EPIC filed a FOIA request to find out if the policy directive could mean military deployment within the United States, especially since the sources who have seen the memo say it allows the Pentagon to pursue actions against adversaries within a vaguely described terrain known only as “cyberspace.” “What it does, really for the first time, is it explicitly talks about how we will use cyber-operations,” a senior administration official told the Post. “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.”
“We’d like to see what the language says and see what power is given,” EPIC attorney Amie Stepanovich told RT this week — a matter that will now have to be appealed before any details can be determined. News of the directive comes just as lawmakers in Congress failed once again to approve a cybersecurity legislation that would provide new connections between the federal government and the private sector in order to supposedly ramp up the United States’ protection from foreign hackers. With the defeat of that bill, though, members of both the House and Senate now say they expect Pres. Obama to sign a separate executive order that will lay down the groundwork for a more thorough cybersecurity plan to be established.
Meanwhile, the commander-in-chief has already signed a secret order — Presidential Policy Directive 20 — that might remain classified unless EPIC can win in court. “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,” Stepanovich tells RT. Responding to the FOIA request, the NSA says releasing information on the directive cannot occur because “disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.” “Because the document is currently and properly classified, it is exempt from disclosure,” the NSA writes.
I have noticed that silence and I don’t like it at all. I also agree with rdb3’s comment.
History shows that a first shot, singular, would be stupid and suicidal. Take away the singular and put in a vast plural, and you might not lose, depending on how smart you were about it, historically speaking, that is, of course.
That's what concerns me most. It only takes one idiot...
Ping
That puts people on lists.
I think the first shot was probably fired long ago. Ruby Ridge, Waco, any number of wrong doors being kicked in and innocent people shot, pets killed, etc.
Is it time to go to war yet?
That puts people on lists.>>>>>>>>>>
Yep, and with the Obama Campaigns data base, the census data base ( run out of the white house in 2008)which has GPS locations of every household, each one of us is on a list that shows who we are , where we sleep, and the GPS coordinates for drones and missiles and eaves dropping
via drones.
I’d say we have a federal government now evolving towards a 1 party “democracy.”
This is fascism, and its dangerous.The Bill of Rights is out the window.So is the constitution.
transparent or transgender?
The US Congress has abdicated to the incoming
terrorists, and al Qaeda worldwide, giving
THEM money and freedom from DEATHpanels/ObamaCARE.
The US Congress is as useless as third teat on a man.
Welcome to the USSA, comrades.
Not possible.
Russia Today?
“...It only takes one idiot...”
Or one well-paid, well-funded, ideologically-driven “Hope and Changer”.
I have a friend that would be sitting in a federal prison right now if he didn't know the right person, because he got through firewalls.
It's entirely possible to get through.
It’s possible to get thru but maybe they want you to get in.
Do you think they would have sensitive info that can be accessed from the outside?
Ain’t that the truth.
“You” are the idiot. It has already been blamed on you and the media will comply, you just dont know it yet.
“Everybody’s got a plan, then you get punched in the face.” — Mike Tyson
Yeah the tyrants have big plans, but I take a small tiny comfort in the fact these people are mentally ill erratic nutjobs and often incompetent, compared to smarter more disciplined tyrants in history. But that incompetence, changing stories daily, lying through their propaganda press and bungling their ops like Fast and Furious, Benghazi, or SS shenanigans could very well open us up to a MAJOR terrorist attack. Would not surprise me in the least.
Otherwise these clowns are going to overreach their hand and fumble badly. They are making headway in some of their tyranny sure, but that wouldn’t be the case if we had strong Constitutionalists and freedom loving representatives; the larger problem which we all know is the destruction of the rule of law, political correctness, the RINO party and corruption, immorality with too many fat lazy entertained Americans.
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