STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

CYBERSECURITY a “CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER” IMMEDIATE ACTION IS REQUIRED—not tomorrow but today!

 I have written extensively about the problem of cyber-security.  As many of you, my dear readers know all too well,  the issue of cyber-attacks against the USG and other private entities has been extensive and relentless. 

  We cannot wish away the problem. 

  We cannot discuss the problem until many our infrastructures collapse for one ‘unknown’ reason or another.

  We cannot cogitate, meditate and rant and rail against government intervention and government intrusion into our privacy [remember I am one of the premier ranters on this issue]. 

Sometimes, we do have to deal with a REALITY that continues to impinge on  OUR very EXISTENCE.

  It’s not a cholera plague.

  It’s not meteorite that has hit us yet, as it did unfortunately in Russia just yesterday [traveling at 19,000 mph].

  However, it is a CONTAGION that we cannot see, smell, hear or anyway perceive until long after it does its damage.

It’s a bombardment of electronics, more specifically ‘one’ and ‘zeros’ raging through the ether of life [light,  sound, or any other means of conductivity] to engage in an INVINCIBLE WAR,  for want of a better Clausewitz Term I will use the word ‘WAR’ against our US FUNCTIONAL and STRUCTURAL ENTITIES. 

  What do I mean by “FUNCTIONAL AND STRUCTURAL ENTITIES?”  It sounds like some Sociological Taxonomy that I may have learned or absorbed by intellectual osmosis in some esoteric ‘Think Tank’. 

Believe me, those FSE’s as I call them are very real.

  Banks,  private industries,  electrical power grids and nuclear power units as well as a multiplicity of airline planes, air-traffic control towers, and a multitude of host entities depended on electricity and the internet---they are all vulnerable to ‘attack’ from any and all sources within and outside the USG. 

  So why do I emphasize the important of the USG in this case and particularly the military as our front line of defense as opposed to our private security companies which I believe are well-intentioned (or profit motivated or both).

  The answer is quite simple.

  As many of you by now know, I had been originally trained, more accurately described as ’exposed’ to the INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA and it’s consequences, CYBER WAR in 1973---yes 1973--- at MIT graduate school at the Center for International Studies,  funded by  DEFENSE ADVANCED RESEARCH AGENCY and the CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY . 

That’s right !!

It was not Google or Yahoo.

  It was not NetApp!

  It was not Amazon.com!

  It was not FACEBOOK –despite Mark Zuckerberg’s great flim flam film attempt to take credit for it.

  The INTERNET and the SOCIAL MEDIA were conceived well over forty years ago. 

  So what does that mean for today's lesson? 

  George Santayana,  the philosopher, stated the basic premise of imaginative creation coupled with immediate action, and I will restructure his thoughts to fit my present arguments [who in their right mind would claim that I am objective?]: 

If we don’t learn the history of the past,  those mistakes will repeat themselves again and again. 

Clearly, the point I am laboring on at this moment is that we are already behind the curve.   Russia decimated one of it’s ex-Baltic allies with a cyber-attack several years ago. 

  When I was in Silicon Valley, working as a serial entrepreneur [or at least trying],  I could identify well over four thousand  Chinese “cut out” companies engaged in industrial espionage and cyber -attacks. 

And that was over fifteen years ago. 

  But we did nothing about it.   Unfortunately,  the FBI literally got two of it’s ‘peckers’ caught in one Chinese Intel Operative who had ‘honey trapped’ two FBI Counter—Intelligence Operatives and compromised the entire FBI CI program for years. 

But thanks to my friend ex-head of the Counter Intelligence Unit at the FBI,  David Major and Paul Redman at the CIA, all those ‘honey traps’ were literally ‘sewed up’ [no pun intended].  

Now back to my main point. 

  POTUS Obama enacted another EXECUTIVE ORDER on February 13, 2013  in order to ‘bolster cyber-security measures’.

Unfortunately,  the Republicans [a party that I once belonged to before they ‘water boarded’ themselves] had derailed the White House-backed cyber security bill  choosing to favor “private business approach.”

  According to this amorphous business group they were properly concerned that the executive action was planting seeds for the future regulation that would require companies to meet certain security standards. 

  Well, so what? 

  According to Obama’s Executive Order,  it directs different agencies and those companies affiliated with those agencies [one can imagine which anagram agencies are involved] to develop and implement a program of voluntary cyber-security standards for companies  running KEY INFRASTRUCTURES [my emphasis]. 

  So where is the problem here?

  My favorite obstructive Republican “what can I do to screw up our national security again” John McCain [R-Arizona] has once again interceded into a SERIOUS National Security problem and OBSTRUCTED NECESSARY LEGISLATION that was REQUIRED YEARS AGO. 

Now, my fellow citizens, we are faced with an interesting dilemma:

  Do we support another Executive Order by Obamus which does, in my opinion,  provide an immediate ‘band-aid’ protection, for a ‘trade-off’ of ‘business groups’ which are far less interested in the WELFARE of our INFRASTRUCTURES than making PROFITS for their, mostly ANTIQUATED SOFTWARE? 

  In my experience,  I will choose the better of the worse right now.  I would rather go with POTUS’ Executive Order and allow our MILITARY to IMMEDIATELY ENGAGE in BEEFING UP our CYBER-SECURITY.   The U.S. cannot wait for a ‘group’--- of  self interested PROFIT MAKING,  more importantly ANTIQUATED software promoted by McCain and other money-hungry Senators.  These senators are the same ones that blocked the appointment one of their own Vietnam War Heroes, ex-Senator Chuck Hagel. 

  Furthermore,  I have been thrown off GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, more times than I have been arrested by any FBI, CIA or MI units for my DISSENTING OPINIONS on my blogs. 

  In fact, I have never been arrested or harassed by any of  the government agencies--- if anything they have found my blogs to be ‘funny’, ’irreverent’ , which is what they were intended to be… but the PRIVATE COMPANIES are “more controlling than any totalitarian regime!” Google would be right at home in the old Soviet system.

  I started this blog by telling you about the AMAZING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF DARPA and the  EARLY CIA [Pay attention John Brennan] and how the MILITARY/INTEL COMMUNITY foresaw the present day problems long before there were profits and companies to garner wealth from U.S. and other countries' discoveries. 

Now that there is a CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER,  I have no other recourse than to agree with President Obama and congratulate him and our military/intel community for taking EMERGENCY ACTION before I begin to really see the disasters I had envisioned in my four hour ABC TV Mini Series called, “NET FORCE” !

  But as a physician, national security ‘old hand’ I cannot but exclaim: ”LET US EMBRACE THE DANGERS OF REALITY AND ACT ACCORDINGLY IN A TIMELY, JUDICIAL, TEMPERATE FASHION!” 

Cyber-Attacks, and Cyber-War are not areas for PARTISAN politics.

 This time, we do not have a false flag! IT’s REAL !!!!

  And if you don’t believe me, go ask the leaders of Latvia and other Baltic States what happened to them when they messed with Russia? 

Putin has his charms. But Cyber –Attacks and Cyber-War is not one of them !!!

AMERICA, WAKE UP …. The Chinese are coming!  The Chinese are coming!.. OOOPS… they are already HERE!!!!

Oh by the way,  McCain,  go back to Arizona and leave our national security alone!…. You’ve messed it up enough in IRAQ … THE SURGE… AFGHANISTAN…. 

……..Or go back to Las Vegas…. We have had enough of you and your narcissistic self destructive histrionics!

Remember, you are NO WAR HERO !!!

Let’s get on with the work of PROTECTING OUR AMERICAN INFRASTRUCTURES ASAP!!!!

  Thank you Mr President and our military/intel community.

Once again, DARPA and the CIA come to the forefront in a very, very CONSTRUCTIVE WAY!!!!!

Keep up the GREAT WORK AND VIGILANCE!!!!