Susanne Posel
The House of Representatives approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) last week just as the Boston Bombing took over mainstream news. This movement toward totalitarian control over the internet was all but buried in media.
House Representative Mike McCaul used the Boston Marathon Bombings as a metaphor to justify CISPA’s necessity as being a protection against digital bombs (much like the real bombs detonated in Boston).
The current incarnation of CISPA gives the Obama administration the power to impose taxes online.
Online businesses would collect a local and state sales tax for online purchases and the tax will be decided by the state where the purchaser resides.
Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation (NRF) asserts that: “While local, community-based stores and shops compete for customers on many levels, including service and selection, they cannot compete on sales tax. Congress needs to address this disparity. Despite what the opponents say this is not a new tax.”
Senator Kelly Ayotte remarked: “It is going to make online businesses the tax collectors for the nation.”
Just before the new version of CISPA was presented to the House, it included a provision that would empower employers to demand Facebook passwords and logins as a condition of employment to spy on their employees.
This is a gross and obvious invasion of American’s 1st Amendment rights.
In a vote 288 – 127, the Senate is the next branch of the representative government in the US to consider this legislation.
House Representative Dutch Ruppersberger decries an estimated $40 billion is lost by American trade secrets being stolen and sold on black markets across the internet annually.
Ruppersberger said: “If your house is being robbed, you call 911 and the police department comes. That’s the same scenario we are looking at here.”
House Representative Mike Rogers, co-author of CISPA, claims that the bill does not infringe on American’s 4th Amendment rights with regard to setting up concentrated government surveillance on the internet.
Rogers said: “It does something very simple: it allows the government to share zeroes and ones with the private sector . . . a critical bipartisan first step for enabling American’s private sector to defend itself . . . improves cybersecurity without compromising our civil liberties.”
Anonymous has requested that websites go dark on Monday, calling it “Internet Blackout Day” to protect CISPA’s passage on Capitol Hill.
CISPA was brought back to life after Obama’s recent State of the Union address. With the US government’s ability to hide on the shadows and technocratic institutions being exposed under threat, CISPA promises to halt actions taken by hacktivists whether they be Anonymous or foreign governments.
Mainstream media has paralleled this move by beginning a media campaign to push the “digital global village” meme to scare the populace into calling for more big brother controls on the internet. Citing that the effected entities show a clear and present danger to the cybersecurity of the globe is becoming a prominent fear tactic.
The Data Breach Investigations (DBI) report from Verizon states that as much as 96% of attacks originating from governments to take down corporations through allocation of trade secrets and digital intellectual property. The main culprit has been identified as the Chinese government.
The timing of this report is perfect considering that CISPA is headed to the Senate.
The report states: “This may mean that other threat groups perform their activities with greater stealth and subterfuge. But it could also mean that China is, in fact, the most active source of national and industrial espionage in the world today.”
The assumption is that the extent of the Chinese hacking and damages caused have not been assessed, but need to be addressed to salvage the integrity of the internet. Verizon estimates that 621 breaches have been committed while more than 47,000 reports of digital attacks have been collected.
Financial motivation and cyber espionage, according to the report, are inspiring the hacks into manufacturing, transportation and utility corporations.
The number of incidents involving hacktivists has risen, yet the amount of data being syphoned is very slight and meant to be more of an annoyance than a state-sponsored operation.
Spies have been identified as being employed to implement “sophisticated” technological attacks. It is believed that they originate in Eastern Europe – meaning Romania, Bulgaria and Russia.
Directed denial of service (DDoS) attacks has caused websites to come down all over the internet.
In February of this year Facebook announced that “a sophisticated hacking attack” targeted systems that were threatened last month. No user data was “compromised” as employee laptops were infected with malware.
Facebook said: “As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day.”
Facebook stated: “After analyzing the compromised website where the attack originated, we found it was using a ‘zero-day’ (previously unseen) exploit to bypass the Java sandbox (built-in protections) to install the malware.”
It was confirmed that “the attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.”
Later that month President Obama signed executive order (EO) “Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity” which outlines “the need for improved cybersecurity” because of “repeated cyber intrusions into critical infrastructure.”
The EO creates a communicative relationship between the US government and private sector corporations to share digital information regarding customers; as well as expanding the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services (ECS) program that partners with the Department of Defense (DoD), the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Attorney General Eric Holder has released a report entitled, “Administration Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of US Trade Secrets”, to bring to light cyber-threats on US digital infrastructure created by hacktivists such as Anonymous.
The report explains how the American economy, food distribution, entrepreneurial progress and ingenuity are under attack by hacktivists that seek to have an advantage over the global economy through steal trade secrets to sell on the black market. “Additionally, there are indications that U.S. companies, law firms, academia, and financial institutions are experiencing cyber intrusion activity against electronic repositories containing trade secret information.3 Trade secret theft threatens American businesses, undermines national security, and places the security of the U.S. economy in jeopardy. These acts also diminish US export prospects around the globe and put American jobs at risk.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said CISPA “forges new ground” into the abilities of the US government to control the free flow of information on the internet.
Microsoft has begun a marketing and data mining campaign, asking users “what’s your privacy type?”
Their claim is that this information will assist them in understanding a “casual surfer” as opposed to a customer that wants more privacy controls available.
While assuring the user that they are interested in maintaining privacy, the campaign is designed to provide Microsoft intimate information under the guise of improving Skype, Office, Windows and XBox.
People are claiming that the Boston Bombings were staged to hide the passing of CISPA. I say bullshit. CISPA could have been passed on a Sunday or a holiday by the treasoner in Chief at any time.
Just like the NDAA and the NDRP, every one designed to undermine your constitutional rights and your god given freedoms.
Am I the only one who recognizes that the political Elite believe they are royalty and are acting as such?