Could the Posse Comitatus Act affect the Pentagon’s Cyber Command?
Well, it’s just a theory I’m thinking about right now. But the Posse Comitatus Act is a very old law designed to keep the Federal Government / Military out of the law enforcement business. Yesterday, in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, the new director of CyberCommand hinted that technologies and skills developed by the military could be used in the defense of civilian computers. However, this would certainly require layers of lawyers to dig into the nitty gritty of an agency like the NSA & the Defense Department cooperating with the DHS on what is, still, basically just a crime (hacking). It’s not like we’ve declared war on anyone for probing out networks and mucking about with webpages.
Through the command, the NSA would also provide technical support to the Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of protecting civilian networks and helps safeguard the energy grid and other critical infrastructure from cyber-attack, Alexander said.He stressed that the NSA does not want to run or operate the civilian networks, but help Homeland Security improve its efforts.
“So if we develop something we’re going to use for the Defense Department, it makes no sense for [Homeland Security] to develop the same thing,” he said in a short interview after the hearing. “They can leverage it . . . We have great technical people. We can provide them the support.”
I guess the line becomes how far are the cybercommanders going in hunting down bad guys? Are they going to pass over the details of the hackers or assist in their capture, or just hand over some technology to help prevent future attacks.
This will be fun to watch.
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