Security Trends and Legal Issues Week 2 Assignment

Cablegate

Cybersecurity Crisis Training: Stakeholder Press Conference Exercise (Cablegate)

Purpose: This exercise is designed to give you practical experience in handling real-life cybersecurity threats or attacks for their organization. Through this exercise, you will better understand how the types of cyber-attacks described in class are applied, take a shot at forming policy solutions, and sharpen communication.

Deliverables: Prepare a sample press packet. This press packet should include the following items:

Press Release (1 page)

Short technical background sheet (1-2 pages)

This section should describe in more detail the technical issues of the problem at hand.

It may also include pictures and diagrams.

Frequently Asked Questions (1 page)

This section should anticipate questions other stakeholders or the media would ask in response to the problem and should provide your organizations answers.

Preparation: Read the material found via the links below. Additional research on stakeholder positions is strongly suggested as well. You may use any resource you deem necessary to prepare your statement, press kit, and for Q&A.

Potential roles:

There are two important stakeholder roles in this cybersecurity crisis situation. You may choose to take on one of two different roles:

US Department of State

Wikileaks

this is the example

In February 2010, WikiLeaks -a non-profit organization that publishes submissions of classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers in defense of freedom of speech and media publishing, the improvement of our common historical record and the support of the rights of all people to create new history1 began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department between December 1966 and February 2010.

The initial release of the cables, which were published by a host of other publishers such as the New York Times and The Guardian, caused a stir among political leaders, defenders of free speech, as well as the general public. While some supported WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for promoting transparency and protecting journalism, others viewed Assange as a criminal and endangered the nations security. In fact, WikiLeaks became a target for other hacktivists, some of whom believed the organization "threatened the lives of our troops and other assets.2

Consequently, both the U.S. Department of State and WikiLeaks have come under close scrutiny, leaving the public to question how outsiders were able to access classified information from the U.S. government, what negative consequences or international crises might arise as a result of the cables release, and whether WikiLeaks has created the first serious infowar as tweeted by Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder, John Perry Barlow.

Julian Assange was indicted on charges that he conspired with Chelsea Manning to hack into a classified government computer, the US Department of Justice. Assange is accused of trying to help Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst, to crack a password to infiltrate Pentagon computers while she was leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks.

Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange on May 23, 2019 was hit with new federal criminal charges alleging he published secret documents obtained by former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, some of which included the disclosure of foreigners who were aiding the U.S. military abroad. Assange was charged with 17 new criminal counts, which included violations of the Espionage Act. The charges, contained in an indictment issued in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, were revealed during a press conference held by Department of Justice officials in Washington.

Your assignment is to explore this incident further, using your research to present it from the perspective of your stakeholder. Your goal is to publish a press release which explains the controversy and your organizations future plans or suggested policy changes in response to it.

Note: For the timing of the exercise, we will assume its after the arrests of Bradley/Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.

Sources and Additional Reading:

1. Cyberattack Against WikiLeaks Was Weak

2. U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe

3. Obama commutes sentence of Chelsea Manning

4. Chelsea Manning is jailed AGAIN after telling a judge she would 'rather STARVE to death' than testify before a grand jury investigating Wikileaks

5. Doctrine of Specialty Law and Legal Definition

6. Julian Assange could face decades behind bars over spy claims after embassy arrest in London

Be sure to conduct your own additional research to supplement the readings above.

View your assignment rubric.

the example is and i need it to be the same lanth as of the example

SOPA-PIPA

PRESS RELEASE: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Opposes the Stop Online Privacy (SOPA) and Protect IP Acts (PIPA).

The ACLU is the nations guardian of liberty, defending and preserving the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country (About the ACLU, n.d.). That includes the freedoms of speech, expression, and assembly. No matter the circumstances. If the Stop Online Privacy and Protect IP Acts were to become law, these basic human rights will cease to exist in the vastly growing internet realm.

Even online, the rights mentioned above exist to ensure no frivolous litigation or lawsuits can be aimed at those who may hold opposing opinions. There already exist laws that enhance information privacy and puts most of the responsibility (regarding safe keeping) in the hands of the companies or organizations that hold that private information. Copyright infringement is also already illegal, protecting creators works from unlawful use by others. With that being said, do not be misled by what the SOPA and PIPA aim to accomplish.

Implementing these acts will allow nation-wide censorship to occur, giving government the power to completely block access to entire websites, based solely on what they determine to be copyright infringement and the sale of counterfeit goods. Essentially, this would destroy large scale online retailers such as Amazon and the many social platforms we now depend on to allow our freedoms to continue on into the distant future. The questions; Should one vendor (of millions) selling counterfeit item(s) be enough grounds to ban an online retail platform all together? Should social media platforms be responsible for content creators that post/have posted copywritten material(s)? Should they be shut down for it? Or should individuals be responsible to protect their intellectual property and patents using tested avenues that already exist?

Technical Background

SOPA, in context, would allow the United States Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. A court order requested by the DOJ could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from conducting business with websites found to infringe on federal criminal intellectual-property laws, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites (Stop Online Privacy Act, 2019). PIPA would allow those websites to be shut down and removed from the internet.

The main reasons these acts were brought forward is due to the fact that other countries we do business with are not held accountable under our laws. An attempt to exact those laws on other nations is an attempt to protect the rights of our people from foreign powers. That is most definitely a purpose of our government but there are too many road blocks with the SOPA and PIPA legislation presented. This is not something that can be enforced or adopted by a single nation.

For example, if an organization that is registered to an allied nation is bared through the process presented in the acts, does the allied nation not have a stake in that organization? The acts can be used to inflict financial harm on other nations by use of these means. Results of this would be increased radicalization towards the United States. This does not only apply towards allies but also towards nations that purposely target the country.

The main argument over the acts is whether or not it is to be considered censorship. The definition of censorship is the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security (Censorship, n.d.). That is the exact goal SOPA and PIPA aim to achieve, except on a world scale.

Many search engines such as google are used throughout the globe but are based in the United States. Under PIPA these search engines will be required to i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the [court] order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site (PROTECT IP Act, 2019). From a programming standpoint, that would either require a lot of work and resources by a search engine or sensor information not only from our citizens but the rest of the worlds as well.

Regardless, if such acts were implemented into law, there are workarounds to them such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). It takes a minimal amount of research to find that similar technology implementations in nations such as China (the great firewall) are easily bypassed. The only possible way to control such a large and fluid environment such as the internet would be through a much larger organization than the COTUS. Such a measure would have to be agreed to and implemented through a world body such as the United Nations or World Trade Organization.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Are SOPA and PIPA considered censorship?

Answer: By the definition of censorship, yes.

Question: If similar laws are already in place for organizations operating in the jurisdiction of the United States, how would these acts infringe upon our rights?

Answer: For multiple reasons. i) The United States is considered a great world power, followed by many. These acts create a precedent for other nations to adopt similar measures, allowing them to decide which content is suitable for the people in the United States. ii) The physical implementation of the acts would cripple entire websites (with users around the globe) that have a single bad actor involved. This is because the acts guidance for resolution is to remove entire domains. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) already exists to remove single bad actors.

Question: Is there bipartisan support for the acts?

Answer: No. Both the democratic and republican parties have varying stances within their perspective parties in regard to the issue. This points to the fact that support and opposition is not directly correlated with political ties and is considered a complicated matter. That matter is one that deals with the line between national security and human rights.

Question: Who would determine whether or not SOPA/PIPA should be enacted on a domestic/foreign entity?

Answer: The Attorney General (AG) is responsible for acquiring a court order regarding infringing activities that would then be served to other organizations, forcing them to act on the legislation. It should also be pointed out; the AG is appointed and can also be removed by the standing President.

References

About the ACLU. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.aclu.org/about-aclu

Censorship | Definition of censorship in English by Oxford Dictionaries. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/censorship

PROTECT IP Act. (2019, March 07). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act#Content

Stop Online Piracy Act. (2019, May 12). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act#Goals