The New Battlefield: The Internet
Long gone are the days when two warring factions would line up to face each, announce a start, and then enter the hectic fray. Nowadays, the “old war” of guns, blood, and violence is taking a backseat to a new kind of war: a virtual one.
This new modern warfare occurs on the Internet, and the winner isn’t the one with the least dead or the last standing; he is the one with the enemy Intel stored away nice and safe. In order to protect itself, the U.S. will need a vast and in-depth monitoring system, and we might find an extension of the Patriot Act in the works.
Last month, President Obama unveiled this huge new Internet security overhaul. He insists that all civil liberties will be upheld during any surveillance the system will be doing. His senior officials however, think that the complete upholding of all privacy laws will be difficult to do, when scanning every virtual nook and cranny to scout out terrorist activity.
The National Security Agency (NSA) is the branch that is going to spearhead the virtual protection of the U.S. This agency has been in a bit of controversy in the past for supposed privacy invasion. The nation’s security is not a matter to be taken lightly though, and they can justify every action they make. Some have just felt that they have been a bit more invasive than they need to be.
President Obama has repeatedly said that this new program will not affect American’s privacy whatsoever, but the truth is that many terrorists are in the U.S., on our domestic connections. There is a popular theme that runs true for all criminal ventures: “Hide where they least expect you.” If an attack was mounted on the U.S., and they didn’t know who did it, certainly the finger wouldn’t first be pointed at its own citizens.
The program does say that most likely they will have to intercept messages going into and leaving U.S. to or from different countries. This is just like the security system at airports; instead of taking off your bag to have it checked, your e-mail is just scanned.
There is also another issue with this new warfare: the ability and quickness one could identify an enemy. It’s a simple principle; in a physical struggle, the U.S. would know who is fighting them as soon as the first shot was fired. In an online skirmish, things are a bit different. Oftentimes these foreign hackers are able to attack before officials realize it, and if they fail, are able to flee the server and leave no evidence.
This presents a problem to the NSA. Obviously, the best thing to do will be allowing them to monitor EVERYTHING that travels on U.S. networks, for this would alert the right people of any threat as it was happening. However, this would be throwing the Constitution out of the window. People would strongly protest this complete nullification of their privacy.
There is no way the above scenario would fly, so where do they draw the line? Scanning foreign e-mails seems like a good preliminary plan, but the government has also proposed another interesting suggestion: During times of war or strife, allow the NSA complete access to everything. This way, they could have the power to fix any problems, get the nation back to a safe state, and then relinquish their Omni power.
Through this new kind of battle, instead of shooting at each other, there will be two teams of computer savvy techies. They will try and covertly access each other’s sensitive information to find weaknesses in the enemy’s security and exploit it in real-life, or simply hold the information for blackmail. A four-star general from the military will be heading these online battles.
In addition to the struggle faces by its own people’s privacy, the agency will have to deal with those of other countries. For example, if an attack is started in Russia, our organization will still have to burrow through Britain, and possibly violate somebody’s security. Imagine the diplomatic nightmare this would cause: having to negotiate for web use. The foreign governments probably wouldn’t allow us to use their connections to fight OUR fight, and possibly endanger THEIR people. And if we did it under the radar and were to be caught…. Well, we can all imagine where that would go.
There are no cease-fire zones any more. Airs, sea, land, even Internet have all become hot battlefields. The casualties might be different; bodies versus info, but the premises are the same. Every American citizen uses the Internet and its related technologies. Government representatives say that while there will not be an e-draft of people to fight the online war; people still frequent the war zones. In a real battle, if you got caught in the cross fire, you could get shot. The same applies here; if you are in the middle of a virtual war surfing your e-mail, you could get shot. Instead of dying, all of your documents could be seen and your privacy compromised. These representatives advise everyone to take more interest in their Internet security and bolster their defenses.
The government obviously has good intentions, but unfortunately they are stuck in the gray area that is Privacy Rights. The plan to scan all e-mails and the plan to give all power to NSA during a crisis are all just plans. Nothing is concrete yet. There are no better ideas at this point, and I cannot propose one that gets the best of both worlds: safety from e-terrorism, but also complete Fourth Amendment privacy. The government is doing the best it can, but people will always question its power. If these plans were ratified, we the people would need to keep a strict eye on the eye watching us, for it would only take one overzealous organization to take away our rights.
