Obama Authorizes Penalties For Foreign Cyber Attackers 144
An anonymous reader writes President Barack Obama has today signed an executive order extending the U.S. administration's power to respond to malicious cyberattacks and espionage campaigns. The order enforces financial sanctions on foreign hackers who action attacks against American businesses, institutions and citizens. It will enable the secretary of the Treasury, along with the attorney general and secretary of State, to inflict penalties on cyber criminals behind hacking attacks which "create a significant threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy or economic health or financial stability of the United States," Obama said. Sanctions could include freezing of assets or a total ban on commercial trade.
Hypocracy at its best (Score:2, Insightful)
And what about the non-stop attacks from the US government against... everyone else?
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The US (us) is the good guys. The recipient (you) is the bad guys.
So it's OK.
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Remember, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. /s
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you have seen the commercials, you know the truth.
Merica, the global force for "Good"
The USA government can never be wrong (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't you ever bad-mouth the US government or their dogs will be after you for the rest of your pathetic life
Look at what happened to Gaddafi of Libya of Saddam of Iraq and you will understand that you can *NEVER* say anything bad about the government of the United States of America
When (and if) the USA attacks you, it is YOU who must be bad, as USA is the de-facto "good guy" in the whole goddamn world
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Please, no more! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm tired of these April Fool's articles!
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Re:Please, no more! (Score:5, Funny)
This is apparantely not a joke ... it is from the whitehouse.gov website
Well which is it?
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I'd mod you funny if I had mod points today but, burned some karma on the above troll, sorry.
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YAY! April Fool's on Slashdot is finally over.
Something real to read.
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Does the Whitehorse do April Fools? Mr. Putin, we are arming out nuclear missiles! Gotcha...
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"I'm tired of these April Fool's articles!"
And I know this one is not a movie reference, so what stupid video game is it from?
Germany, Swiss, Farance and UN (Score:1)
So the Germans, Swiss, French and the UN can reciprocate and bill USA for having a par tay?
How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is ridiculous. Law is part of the agreement between citizens and their government. Citizens get certain benefits like public education and healthcare, and in return must pay the government taxes and obey their laws. If the citizen disagrees with this, he can resign his citizenship, but by doing so loses the benefits of citizenship as well.
Foreigners, on the other hand, have no such agreement, and therefore it's ridiculous to charge them. What's next, Saudi Arabia charges me for having a beer tonight? North Korea charges me for criticizing their regime? Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
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Foreigners, on the other hand, have no such agreement, and therefore it's ridiculous to charge them. What's next, Saudi Arabia charges me for having a beer tonight? North Korea charges me for criticizing their regime? Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
North Korea may not be able to arrest you, but they sure as hell can block your IP and wire transfers into and out of North Korea.
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They can arrest you. If you show up in North Korea proper. They also have a de facto right to kidnap you from the streets of your home country.
It's true there are processes in place that prevent the vast majority of states from doing either without going through a lot of legal paperwork (ie: warrants, extradition), but the North Koreans are known for shit like kidnapping the dictator's favorite director from the South because he thought his domestic film industry sucked. And getting away with it.
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They also have a de facto right to kidnap you from the streets of your home country.
They do not have the right; but that does not prevent them of doing it. Actors of the state penetrating into a different country and taking hostage citizens of said county (probably any other) is an act of war. Yes, technically most espionage is an act of war.
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de facto right
Contradiction in terms.
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de facto right
Contradiction in terms.
Only if you believe American Constitutional theory trumps common usage. Even in the US when the government does something that it might not supposed to do, the most common question isn't the American Constitutional Theory correct "Is a health care mandate within the Powers granted by Constitution, without unconstitutionally interfering with the rights enumerated in the Amendments?" it's the theoretically incorrect "Do they really have the right to make you buy healthcare?"
Heck, we're both talking about Nort
Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:4, Informative)
Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
Yeah, you should probably check a country's laws before you electronically infiltrate their corporations, banking system, or military computers. This isn't about citizens in other countries simply minding their own business. For those that are wondering how foreigners can be charged with US law, look up "extradition treaty". For those with whom we haven't signed such a treaty, look up "financial sanctions" or "asset forfeiture".
How purposefully obtuse do you have to be not to get this?
Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I'm aware that "asset forfeiture" is the catchall reason our government can use to steal private assets when it knows there is no law on its side, but trying to use this power internationally is going to elicit - I hope to hell, anyway - an armed response.
Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:4, Informative)
I agree that asset forfeiture against citizens isn't warranted unless those assets are the direct gains of illegal activity. There are already punitive laws in place. This practice seemed to emerge with the "war on drugs", and continued with the war on terror.
I think a case could be made for asset seizure against foreign criminals, as there's no other way to punish them for crimes committed. I don't see why an "armed response" would be warranted if there's criminal activity involved. Of course, the big gotcha in all of this is that it's incredibly difficult to actually *prove* who's behind a cyber attack unless you can seize the person's personal computer.
Honestly, I think this is mostly saber-rattling aimed at NK and China, telling them that the US is willing to impose some financial hardships on anyone who attacks any US interests via the internet.
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They aren't foreign criminals.
They broke no law in their country.
They weren't in the USA.
Just like your soldiers doing murder isn't criminal, what they do isn't criminal either, even though there's laws against both killing people and "computer trespass".
Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:4, Interesting)
Although I will concede that jurisdiction is a muddled concept with IT systems, but the following is true: They attack and/or penetrate IT systems that are located on US soil. Under international conventions, this is a crime. This is no different that when I throw a rock across the US/Canada border and damage your car, did the crime happen in the US or Canada? But even in China and North Korea there are laws against damaging IT systems and I am quite sure that they don't have exclusions for US IT systems. Now either they are private citizens and thus it is a criminal act and they are criminals or this is a government sanctioned act and they are soldiers and this is an act of war (i.e. not a crime).
Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny. The Russians seem to have your backs to the wall over the Ukraine...
Russians (Score:2)
Funny. The Russians seem to have your backs to the wall over the Ukraine...
Not really. We're willing to go to war over some things and not others. Ukraine was serious in the diplomatic community but its ties to the US population are relatively small. Striking a NATO country or certain NATO allies would get the Americans involved in a hurry.
There have been times in the past when America has not gone in, when we know from evidence that came out after the fact that Russia would have backed down if we had. Going into the western part might well have worked here, might have started
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Good grief people know so little of history I'd be amazed if you knew who your granddad really was! The US has never been involved in war for altruistic purposes. It has been about power and money grabs since the mid to late 1800s. Stop believing everything you are told and actually study for once in your pathetic life. Look at the big picture instead of what someone told you, because more often than not you have been told WRONG! If you want an eye opener which summarizes US war for profit start with Ca
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In the case of the Ukraine, the US could probably care less. Neither the populace, note the leading casts cared about it. There is little to gain for the US, no use to squabble about one military port in the Black Sea. (Big deal to the Russians.) But the Europeans saw the situation differently and pressured the US to put their wight behind it. The primary reason for Russia's actions was Ukraine's move closer to the EU and NATO, which directly threatened their precious Black Sea port. (No use to "own" a port
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I saw no mention of altruism in GPP. I also see no content in your post unless you mean to claim that some countries do go to war for altruistic reasons, in which case I'd like to see some examples. The US is about as altruistic in war as the other democracies I'm aware of.
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There is a "we": the US. While US policy is disproportionately controlled by the rich, there's limits as to how much war can be sold to the 99%. The Vietnam War went way over those limits, and caused large political upheavals.
The statement "We're willing to go to war over some things and not others" has nothing to do with altruism. The fact is that the US (both its decision makers and its people) are unwilling to go to war over Ukraine. That's all.
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How purposefully obtuse do you have to be not to get this?
No doubt the members of PLA Unit 61398 [wikipedia.org] are terribly upset at the thought of having their American assets seized. Right.
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Neither of those things involve charges. That's why they're effective - if they had to be backed by actual charges that went through an actual judicial system, the targets could win cases and get the sanctions dismissed. An arbitrary blacklist is a lot better from the viewpoint of the POTUS and his mini
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If you are OK with the head of the NSA being extradited, charged, found guilty of espionage and imprisoned in Europe or China then go right ahead and say such things ...
I'm failing to see a downside here...
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Hope at last that the same rules will be applied to hacking from the US. Time to seize the assets of google [bbc.com] and others American business.
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USA's own intelligence services break those laws the detriment of their own populace, with no visible repercussions. Why would people from the outside expect any different?
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The accounts are isolated. The bank used is isolated. Any other banks connecting to the bank with the account are isolated.
With the use of ideas like Section 311 the USA Patriot Act account holders and their banks can be traced.
The international financial system then has to select between that isolated bank or U.S. regulators.
The other option
Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:5, Informative)
This is ridiculous. Law is part of the agreement between citizens and their government. Citizens get certain benefits like public education and healthcare, and in return must pay the government taxes and obey their laws. If the citizen disagrees with this, he can resign his citizenship, but by doing so loses the benefits of citizenship as well.
Foreigners, on the other hand, have no such agreement, and therefore it's ridiculous to charge them. What's next, Saudi Arabia charges me for having a beer tonight? North Korea charges me for criticizing their regime? Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
He's not charging them. He's not arresting them. He's got multiple sets of powers, and he isn't using the law enforcement one here because there is no actual statute passed by Congress to deal with the problem.
He's using his military powers, which are incredibly broad because the Founders really did not want Congress and the Supreme Court to stop expeditions against Tecumseh-types on any basis whatsoever. He has an enemy that is partly military (China's cyber-ops unit is in the military), so he's probably good as long as he doesn't start abusing the law.
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Re:How can foreigners be charged under US law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever been in the military? Nothing involves more administrative procedures then military action. Even during our Civil War there were formal procedures to determine precisely what you were allowed to do to that dude on the gray coat.
As for your claims about statutory basis, I fully understand that Americans have this broad-based-delusion that Congress has a significant say over what the military actually does beyond a) the budget, and b) officer promotions; but there is simply no Constitutional basis for that claim. There's statutory basis, but the basis is generally "Congress pitched a huge hissy fit when President Jefferson used his powers to unilaterally invade the Barbary Pirates so he went along with it when they proposed a retroactive statute to authorize the operation." Then you get case law based on the resulting hissy-fit statutes, but here's the key thing:
Nobody ever claimed that anybody had the legal Power to Order the Fleet back into port after Jefferson sent them to Libya solely on his say-so. Nobody tried to make the legal case Nixon couldn't bomb Cambodia stand up in Court. The hissy-fit statutes like the War Powers Act are legitimate to the extent they are used by Congress to explain what, precisely, it intends to fund when it funds the military. They are clearly not legitimate to the extent that they could actually be used against a President in a Court of Law.
What's going on in this case is simple: it's established that Commanders-in-Chief can freeze the bank accounts of enemies of the US. This did require a statute, the PATRIOT Act, because it would not have been in the toolbox of an 18th-century monarch or George Washington. But now that it's established, and it's widely considered to have been a useful military tool against Al Qaeda, the administration can use it against anyone it thinks is a military opponent. Congress will bitch, because they always bitch.
But that doesn't mean PLA Col. Wu's attempt to get his bank account bank will actually work.
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Wow. I'm glad that you educated me. I had always thought that the Constitution granted the power to declare war to Congress alone.
I always thought, too, that there were civilian administrative procedures. I'm sure glad you let me know that that lady working in the drivers license division was drawing military hazard pay. And judges and courts ... all part of the military machine, eh?
... and that mystical power of the President to command the executives of banks in foreign countries ... I had no idea about t
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How can the power to declare war be relevant to how the US responds to attacks on military infrastructure by foreign military units? Assuming it actually applies to cyber-attacks, pirate raids, or any other number of military attacks that don't involve full scale national mobilization, the war was already started by them.
I never said there weren't civilian administrative procedures. That's a strawman you're creating, apparently because the last time you actually thought about the President's military powers
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The case for financial sanctions against Al Qaeda is not as clear cut as you might think.
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Whether it's overblown or not isn't relevant to the question of whether most people (and particularly the ones who are Judges) think it was a good idea.
As for your fears about being declared a terrorist, welcome to fucking America. The Commander-in-Chief clause is specifically designed so you do not have the right to prevent the President from oppressing you. If he thinks he has legitimate Commander-in-Chief reasons to lock you up then you get locked up. He doesn't need a statute, or a Court Order (altho h
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This is ridiculous. Law is part of the agreement between citizens and their government. Citizens get certain benefits like public education and healthcare, and in return must pay the government taxes and obey their laws. If the citizen disagrees with this, he can resign his citizenship, but by doing so loses the benefits of citizenship as well.
Foreigners, on the other hand, have no such agreement, and therefore it's ridiculous to charge them. What's next, Saudi Arabia charges me for having a beer tonight? North Korea charges me for criticizing their regime? Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
American government consists of a creative bunch of people. If they can find a reason to invade and carpet bomb a sovereign country, I'm sure they'll find a way to harass citizens of foreign country.
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How can foreigners be charged under US law?
They commit a crime that is punishable under US law, in a country that has an extradition treaty with the US. Think of the Kim dotcom situation, although he didn't get extradited, fortunately for him.
If you think it's ridiculous, then convince your country to not have an extradition treaty with the US.
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Yes, IF they had invade the house, killed, stolen and assaulted people, they would be criminals in the USA because they were doing it in the USA.
They aren't in the USA when they use the internet to connect to your computer, though.
What do you do when the NSA is spying and breaking into computers of France, Germany, Italy, et al? Call them criminals and, since they are government employed, seize assets and sanction the US government interaction with all the banks of the world to get them punished extra-judic
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I can't really say that I don't like your comment "per se", but ... when was the list time you were involved in negotiation of an "agreement between citizens and government"? Did someone come to you and asked what should be in the law?
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when was the list time you were involved in negotiation of an "agreement between citizens and government"?
About 6 months ago. I was presented a number of choices to select from as was the rest of the voting population. Unfortunately most of the choices that were made previously made were made again and while most didn't not make a choice the vast majority of those who did made a different choice than I did.
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If the citizen disagrees with this, he can resign his citizenship
I hear this is getting harder to do in the US.
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Foreigners, on the other hand, have no such agreement
The problem is that crossing virtual borders should not be viewed any different than crossing real borders. The only difference here is that virtual borders aren't currently protected (in some countries they are). This is also why governments such as the Canadian government are starting to throw the idea of controlling in/outbound traffic. This is very bad for the internet and we can blame online criminals for this.
Should I serious have to look up every single country's law before I do something, just to make sure I'm not breaking some obscure country's law?
I wouldn't consider a ban on hacking to be an obscure law. Theft or vandalisms is a crime in
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Plus, you have the problem such as the hacking command center in Canada, ran by the US NSA, that launches attacks on the US with the intent on pointing the finger at other countries. How can anybody be sure it isn't a false flag attack as long as the NSA runs something like this?
Oh, and I'm pretty sure an order very similar to this would have happened if we had President Romney too. I'm not forgiving Obama for it but, the name in office matters very little any more nor does the party affiliation. The
This only addresses half the problem. (Score:2)
The other half is companies that don't properly secure their information systems. And with a law like this in place, there's even less reason to.
Another puff of hot air from our Obama-in-chief (Score:5, Interesting)
Obama has no authority to impose sanctions on anybody for these acts, unless (1) Congress passes a law that says he does or (2) a foreign country says he does, creating jurisdiction. Neither has happened.
Obama said "From now on, we have the power to freeze their assets, make it harder for them to do business with U.S. companies, and limit their ability to profit from their misdeeds" in the making (apparently) of an executive order. If the power existed, it existed prior to Mr. Obama's order because it was authorized by 1 or 2 above. Mr. Obama's declarations of power are worthy of the bottom of my birdcage.
This idiot of a reporter at The Stack dot com thinks that an executive order is "legislation". Someone should inform her that legislation almost always appears in the U.S. Code, not in some press release on the White House Blog. I can't wait for this administration to try to enforce these sanctions: they're going to get tossed out of court on their rear ends if they try.
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It's call media incompetence, don't blame Obama for their shoddy reporting, he could probably announce a war on stupidity and they'd ask which country was going to be invaded first.
(The answer is Mississippi, BTW.)
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Hmm. One would think an impeachment is a slam dunk if what you say is correct. Reps hold both houses. Where is it?
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Ha! Maybe you're right. I remember Dems were pretty gleeful towards the end of Shrub's tenure.
So, to restate: It's acceptable for the president to break the Constitution, because it's politically expedient to allow him to embarass others.
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>Apaches dropping off the "enforcers"
The Apache is a gunship. It doesn't carry troops.
Maybe you mean Blackhawks
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The Apache can carry up to four troops on its payload wings - its been done in several situations where troop carriers were way way too vulnerable, especially in combat rescue scenarios.
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This is good stuff, though. The White House needs to cast their executive orders ever broader and wider. Soon nobody at all will believe the Executive should have any power to meddle outside the Constitutional mandate. It's a good trend. Keep it up, guys.
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So he's got the power to unilaterally rule a US Citizen in Yemen is an enemy of the US, and blow up said citizen with a drone (incidentally killing several others), but he can't freeze the US bank account of a Chinese military officer whose busily hacking Americans?
When normal lawyers deal with the Commander-in-Chief clause, which has very few limits (the biggest is that it doesn't apply that often), they really get into trouble fast.
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So he's got the power to unilaterally rule a US Citizen in Yemen is an enemy of the US, and blow up said citizen with a drone (incidentally killing several others), but he can't freeze the US bank account of a Chinese military officer whose busily hacking Americans?
Until Congress changes it, yep. That's how it is, no matter how illogical it might seem.
When normal lawyers deal with the Commander-in-Chief clause, which has very few limits (the biggest is that it doesn't apply that often), they really get into trouble fast.
Nope. Look it up for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Another puff of hot air from our Obama-in-chief (Score:5, Informative)
That is the least relevant statute on the books.
Why?
Because the Founders clearly didn't want Congress to have any say over day-to-day military operations. They explicitly designed the President's powers to totally pre-empt any Congressional claim to such control. Their reasoning was quite simple: in 1789 there was no telegraph, so a message to Congress asking for authorization to deal with a Spanish Governor who was trying to eat a little bit of Georgia would not be dealt with by Congress until everyone was already dead. The local garrison commander had to have the ability to order his forces into combat without Congressional authorization. Since he gets his legal authority from the President, that means the President also has to have the authority to authorize small-scale military operations without asking Congress.
Congress's checks on the local Army commander's authority were the facts that a) Congress could eliminate his regiment in the next budget, which would fire him, and b) since all military officer-level jobs are Congressionally confirmed they could also refuse to let him have another job.
The Declaration of War clause doesn't actually justify give Congress much power over anything but a Total War we start, and couldn't apply here because if the Chinese are attacking us we get to attack them back. They have started the War.
The "Necessary and proper" clause, combined with the changes in technology that have made Congressional control possible, would a good enough rationalization for a sane Supreme Court. But we do not live in a world where the Supreme Court is sane. We live in a world where the Supreme Court is dominated by textual Federalists who think the solution to this problem is to go through the Amendment process.
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They did. The PATRIOT Act allows the Treasury to sanction anyone at any time, for pretty much any reason.
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You know, if you keep doing ridiculous shit long enough (and getting away with it), eventually you can do something super ridiculous and send out the PR release on April 1. Everyone will think it's a joke.
OMG April Fool's LOL! (Score:2)
Making rules against cyberattacks against US computers? LOL!!! Foreigners should just be able to hack away with no repercussions! This HAS to be an April Fools! LOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back to our regularly scheduled conspiracies (Score:2)
screw sanctions (Score:2)
It's the IRS (Score:2)
This is hilarious (Score:1)
given what the NSA does, how it attacks, breaches, and infiltrates foreign networks and systems.
Hmmm ... how's that work? (Score:2)
So, the US has decided they will apply penalties/punishment for people who break into their computers.
But the US has decided they can break into any and all computers.
On behalf of the part of the world who thinks you shouldn't have access to our communications ... what the hell gives you the right to penalize someone for things you openly do? Why are attacks against you special?
Why does American foreign policy boil down to "we are special because we're Americans", and why the hell should the rest of the wo
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Government does what it wants. The US just has more leverage, so they can actually pull it off. Most people wouldn't be deterred by pissing off, say, Albania.
There is a key difference here, and it's targeted toward non-goverment types. If some guy in Whogivesastan breaks into a bank and wires himself a lot of cash, there's not much the government can do about it other than what they're saying here.
If the Whogivesastan government breaks into a bank and wire themselves a lot of cash, it's a diplomatic inci
We'll show them! (Score:2)
The penalty is being flooded with bad April Fool's jokes.
Ok, spin it around (Score:1)
Does the same apply for other countries who are being attacked by america's cyber soldiers? *cough* NSA?
Swatting just got an upgrade! (Score:1)
Yay, swatting just got an upgrade.
Since internet based crime is already hard to track down to individuals or groups who are only making reasonable efforts to hide their identities I envision a new from of cyber-attack, DOFBA attack or Denial Of Funds By America attack. All that is needed is to commit a 'cyber' attack on the US or its citizens in a way that upon investigation tracks back to some group that you wish to punish. Though come to think of it, this may have already happened see the timeline of the
How do you say "Scary" sarcastically in Russian? (Score:2)
I'm sure that the Russian and Chinese hackers are absolutely terrified of Obama's penalties.
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You know, I liked the GNAA back when they had press releases relating to recent event, and up-to-the-minute trolling for news stories. But now it's all stale copy-pasta. You aren't the GNAA, you're just lame imitators.
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