Cyber Command may soon watch over us

The US appears to be planning to intensify its worldwide surveillance of communications, including the Internet, as part of the War on Terror. This is to be partially achieved through an organisation to be called, at this stage, “Cyber Command”.

A US Air Force (USAF) article, on October 5, 2006, has provided some graphic details of the thinking behind Cyber Command.

[US] Air Force leaders are gathering in early November to discuss plans for creation of a new command, one chartered with flying and fighting in cyber space. Cyberspace became an official Air Force domain, like air and space, on Dec. 7, 2005, when Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne and Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. T. Michael Moseley introduced a new mission statement.

The new mission is to “deliver sovereign options for the defence of the United States of America and its global interests - to fly and fight in air, space and cyberspace”.

It’s not surprising that the USAF is concerned with aircraft, satellites and missiles (of Strategic Air Command) because they fly.

But what stretches credulity is that the USAF, through Cyber Command, may be getting into the civilian communications area. The logic for this USAF expansion, judging by the USAF article, is that electrons, essential to all communications, also fly (or at least move in three dimensions).

The cyber domain includes all the places an electron travels including landline, Internet and wireless communications. This means that Australia’s phone network including Internet sites will potentially be a monitoring area involving Cyber Command.

Dr Lani Kass, Director of the US Air Force Cyberspace Task Force and formerly a major in the Israeli Defence Force, describes the Cyber Command concept this way:

“The chief of staff of the Air Force is going to gather his senior officers and talk about the new domain, in which, according to our mission, we are going to fly and fight … our objective is to come out with a course, a vector, that will set us up for transforming our Air Force, to get us ready for the fight of the 21st century.”

“The [cyber] domain is defined by the electromagnetic spectrum,” Dr Kass said. “It's a domain just like air, space, land and sea. It is a domain in and through which we deliver effects - fly and fight, attack and defend - and conduct operations to obtain our national interests.”

“Cyberspace is something on which, as a technologically advanced nation, the United States is hugely dependent,” Dr Kass said. “You use your ATM card, you use your cell phone and you go to an Internet cafe. If somebody is pregnant, they go have a sonogram. If they are sick, they have an X-ray or an MRI. All those things are in cyberspace. Our life has become totally bounded, dependent on cyberspace. Therefore, the importance of that domain is not only for how we fight, but also for our way of life.”

Dr Kass continues reasonably “Enemies who cannot match us on land, at sea, in the air, or in space, are exploiting the fact that in cyberspace you have a very low entry cost. Low cost is what makes that domain extremely attractive to nations, criminal and terrorist organi zations who could not possibly attack the United States symmetrically. All you need to do is buy a laptop or a cell phone. As a matter of fact, you can just go to an Internet café and not even buy that stuff. You can buy yourself a phone card and you can cause high-impact effects.”

“... enable the kill chain …”

However, like a latter day Dr Strangelove, Dr Kass adds:

“What I see in the future is true cross-domain integration, to deliver effects, like we deliver in air and space, where the commander has at his disposal, truly sovereign options, as stated in our mission, which is the ability to do whatever we want, wherever we want, whenever we want, and however we want - kinetically, and non-kinetically and at the speed of sound and at the speed of light.”

“One of the most important things we do, in and for cyberspace, is enable the kill chain,” Dr Kass said. “It allows us to help find, fix and finish the targets we are after. The problem is finding the target. Most of the enemies are hiding in plain sight.”

“One of the issues we are going to be discussing is who is the cyberwarrior,” Dr. Kass said. “What will he or she need to be able to do? What kind of educational skills, what kind of technical skills, what kind of training, and what kind of career path do we need to offer to those kids who are coming into our Air Force and wanting to fly and fight not only in air and space, but also in cyberspace.”

Doubtless some Australians making phone calls, sending emails or blogging on the Internet may come under the scrutiny of Dr Kass and Cyber Command.

Perhaps the concept of “Cyber Command” will a snappy redevelopment of the USAF’s existing Air Intelligence Agency? Perhaps Dr Kass is attempting to extend Air Force intelligence's activities into the domestic security area? It’s always difficult to fathom bureaucratic intentions, especially as they apply to secretive intelligence bodies.

Cyber Command, if created will have close links to the US National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA's role is to collect and analyse foreign communications generally (including Australia’s private communications) and protect US Government communications. Here is further information about the NSA, sigint and the broader UKUSA intelligence alliance.

The USAF and the NSA are both under the US Defence Department portfolio. Some might say Cyber Command will be restricted to battle zones but Dr Kass is fairly explicit that its brief is the War on Terror and so this means anywhere.

The zealous statements of Dr Kass are clearly meant for US military consumption, but the tone should be of concern to Australians. The NSA, which is the chief monitor of cyberspace, has been traditionally seen as a conservative, perhaps moderate, intelligence organisation. If an aggressive Cyber Command (as described by Dr Kass) is to be closely integrated with the NSA, the NSA may drift in the same aggressive political direction.

While the military alliance between the US and Israel is extensive, deep and often secret, a person who developed their thinking in the IDF should (perhaps) not be permitted to pass on the IDF’s notorious ethos to a powerful area of the US military’s “kill chain”.