Kerry is questioning the NYT publishing cyberwar story

[beachmom]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/06/kerry-questions-nyt-decision-to-run-stories-125498.html

Sen. John Kerry on Wednesday questioned whether the New York Times should have published explosive stories last week about President Obama ordering cyberattacks against Iran’s nuclear program.

“I personally think there is a serious question whether or not that served our interest and whether the public had to know,” Kerry, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman, told reporters. “To me it was such a nitty-gritty fundamental national security issue. And I don’t see how the public interest is well served by it. I do see how other interests outside the United States are well served by it.”

...


After answering the question and walking away, Kerry chased down Barrett down the hallway to clarify his remarks: “With the Pentagon Papers, the country was being lied to, you can understand the need to know. On this, I don’t think a need-to-know standard gets met.”

But, it ends up there is a lot more to this story:

http://mediagazer.com/120607/p18#a120607p18

http://mediagazer.com/120606/p25#a120606p25

From what I gather from all these different stories, John Kerry is kind of at odds with the White House, who apparently never asked the NYT not to publish the story and may have been the source for a lot of it. My first thought reading the story was that Iran is going to attempt to retaliate and that's not good. OTOH, maybe they would do it anyway if only they could. In general, I'm more afraid of Russian hackers who are creating turmoil at LinkedIn at the moment.

What are people's thoughts?

Adding another article:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/06/the-rewards-and-risks-of-cyberwar.html?currentPage=all

I think the problem is not that it was published -- the Iranians probably already knew who did it. It's that this is not necessarily a good thing to do -- almost like starting a new nuclear race.

[karynnj]

1. I have a slightly different take

Last edited Thu Jun 7, 2012, 05:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Putting aside whether the story should have been printed for a while, I think it is an interesting discussion as to whether the cyber attack that took out the uranium processing was a reasonable thing to do. There are no good options - Iran is expanding its program to a point where it could shift to military uses and have enough processed uranium. If they did this , there would be a very short time to counter them. We - and the rest of the world - already have been using tough sanctions and they are not stopping.

But, one disturbing question is that they are not currently doing anything (with this) that is really against international law. It is also true that they - and not Israel - are a signee of the non-proliferation agreement and to this point do not have WMD. Though many here question why they need nuclear power at all, given their oil resources, there are some who explain that there could be a reasonable business case for using nuclear power for some power needs.

As to a foreign country (countries) taking down a major infrastructure element by cyberhacking. I hadn't thought of it then, but I would imagine the US reaction would have been one of rage if any energy plant here were taken off line - or even more sabotaged so it could not function. In some ways, Iran not responding as I would imagine we would suggests that they do not see a viable way to do so that would not lead to their destruction. (That the cyber warfare was combined with assassinating their nuclear scientists in other actions that Israel seems linked to is something troubling - because these people are not doing anything wrong.)

Yet, it may be that the US was faced with the alternatives of letting Iran become a nuclear nation, strategically bombing the sites (and by most accounts there are many and they are located in secure deep places that would be difficult to destroy), and hampering the process through cyber hacking. This then leads to who needs to know what and who has to approve of that type of decision. You said it when you said this could lead to a new nuclear race - and it could lead to a race to develop cyper weapons that could remotely damage other countries.

As to the story, I think there IS a good reason not to have it publicly detailed. The early stories all spoke of it as likely a cyber attack - and I assume that all of us immediately thought the US and Israel were possible sources. But, going back to the fact that - as of now - there has been no Iranian response that I have heard of against the US or Israel and my thoughts on the anger this would engender in the US, I wonder if the US paper of record detailing all of this actually could make it harder for Iran to not respond.

[beachmom]

2. I don't know about you, but I feel like my life has become

much more enmeshed with the internet, so that even a slight disruption in services would be the equivalent to the power going out. I assume that this was JK's fear about the story being published. My take is that it was the ACTION, not the publishing of the action, which is the potential problem. My take is that Iran is a current problem but that internet disruption will be an ongoing problem that will outlive problems in the Middle East. We're really only at the beginning of the technological revolution. We're very dependent on everything working in concert, so that when things go wrong it goes far beyond the overhyped Y2K apocalypse predictions. That dependency will only increase in the future. I hope some of that big DHS budget is being used to fortify our defenses on this front.

I am a pretty big 1st amendment person. The NYT was very responsible, taking their story to the government before publishing. When it was stuff against Bush and the NSA story, I didn't hear protests from liberal Senators. Frankly, I disagree with JK that this was not something the public should know. I kind of like knowing that the government has taken this step -- right or wrong. The fact that the WH hasn't lodged a similar protest as JK is very telling.

[karynnj]

3. I agree that this is part of the scary new frontier of warfare

I think ALL of us would feel lost with any disruption of the internet. In fact, in the Mt Ida talk Kerry speaks of that, but this goes beyond taking down the internet itself or corrupting sites - it goes to taking down infrastructure that has connections to the internet for any reason.

I have mixed feelings about the article, but agree that the NYT was very reasonable in what they printed and how they handled it. From their comment, they showed the article to the government, took out some information and were given a green light to print. The Republican attacks - that it should not have been released and was to make Obama look good are very dangerous and I trust completely not true.

Kerry was in this same position on the Wikileaks and he has always been very against leaks - although he readily accepts that the Pentagon Papers SHOULD have been published because they showed the government was lying. (Cynically, I could say that in that instance he was outside the government he is now in) I think, like you, I want to know what our government is doing -- at least after they did it. Here, my thought is that if PUBLIC acknowledgment that we did have a cyber attack on Iran makes things more difficult (if that is even possible) than when it was merely assumed, than I understand Kerry's reluctance. As to the WH, I wonder if the difference is not that they are in an awkward place - and they have asked Kerry to make that point - rather than him being at variance with the WH, though his position is not inconsistent with previous Kerry positions.

[Mass]

4. I have not followed this story too much, but it seems one of the goals of Kerry talking about this

was to defend the White House from McCain and others' ludicrous claims

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/07/kerry-white-house-not-involved-in-leaks/

Kerry: White House: "Not involved" in leaks
Kerry adamant White House not involved in intelligence leaks

By Ted Barrett

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he is “really upset” about recent leaks of classified information because it “endangers our long-term security” and it “begs retaliation.” But Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was adamant that no one at the White House or in Democratic politics was involved in the leaks.

“I know that people at the White House were not involved,” he said.

RECOMMENDED: Intel chief wants more lie detector tests to deter leaks

Asked about suggestions from Sen. John McCain of Arizona and other Republicans that the leaks came from someone trying to boost the president’s political standing, Kerry said they are wrong.

“McCain needs to know, before people make that kind of accusation, the reporters themselves have said it did not come from anybody on the Obama team or on the Democratic side or anything like that,” Kerry said. “I take that at face value.”

I admit I have the same worries about Internet disruptions due to such a virus, but I thought that announcing the virus was just an attempt to raise the war drums a little more. Obviously, Iran having nuclear weapons is frightening, but why is it more frightening than Pakistan, for example, or any other country for the matter, as it could fall into the hands of crazy people at all times. At the same time, why would Iran be deprived of nuclear energy. As we all know, oil is a non renewable resource and is dangerous for our planet. Why it would be preferable to see them shift to solar, I am unclear what this accomplishes, except getting the Iranian people against the US. It is frustrating to see that American politicians fall in line behind the cyber rattling of the Israeli far right (looks a lot like the drum beating before the Iraqi War).

[wisteria]

5. Thanks for posting.

I have been so busy, I haven't been able to follow all of this. But, to me on the surface it looks like the White House does not have its entire act together regarding this matter.

[beachmom]

6. Researchers conclude Flame related to Stuxnet

I just don't think this stuff is all that "top secret" if we can read about all this on Techmeme.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/flame-tied-to-stuxnet/

I consider Kaspersky Labs pretty reputable, so we now know that the U.S./Israel is also responsible for Flame. It just isn't in the "Paper of Record" yet.

Let's face it, on one hand it's scary the way the internet can be disrupted. OTOH, it actually doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who is responsible in most cases especially when it's a state actor. That is why all strategic decisions on cyberwar activities should ASSUME it will eventually be revealed who did the hacking. As Karen said upthread, Iran no doubt knew who did this pretty early on, but either a) could not launch a good enough attack or b) chose not to because the price they would pay for doing so made it not worth it.

I just don't agree with McCain and the GOP that this is a story that makes Obama look good. So, in that sense it's a nonstory. Now the other side of it is what a lot of lefties are upset about which is the Obama Administration aggressively going after whistleblowers even when they are trying to get the truth out there. But nobody seems to care about that except the Glenn Greenwalds of the world.