Perelman Tonight er, Panetta Today: Beware of the coming cyber-Pearl Harbor
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Warning: This is not a drill, or an outing of "Perelman Tonight."
by Ken
from Huffpost-slash-AOL News:
CIA Chief Leon Panetta: Cyberattack Could Be 'Next Pearl Harbor'
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee for a confirmation hearing for his appointment as the secretary of defense, Leon Panetta warned that the U.S. could face cyberwarfare in battles to come.
“The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems,” Panetta said.
Though he talked on subjects ranging from Libya to withdrawing troops from Afghanistan to the war on terrorism, Panetta highlighted his concerns regarding the U.S.'s preparedness for cyberattacks.
“This is a real possibility in today’s world,” he said. “As a result, I think we have to aggressively be able to counter that. It is going to take both defensive measures as well as aggressive measures to deal with it.”
The Obama administration recently unveiled its proposal for global cybersecurity. Statements from the Pentagon have also indicated that the government will consider cyberattacks originating from foreign countries to be equivalent to acts of war meriting military response.
This sounds pretty serious, chief, and I'll bet it would help if we all went out today and took some "aggressive measures" -- like maybe abridging some civil cyberliberties? Wasn't it Justice Brandeis who said, "Better safe than sorry"? (Possibly not. I always have trouble keeping track of those justices and all they say. They're regular Chatty Cathies.)
Anyway, here's the thing, chief. It's hard not to at least crack a smile from dire warnings issued by someone who looks like, well --
This is all I'm saying. You can get back to whatever you were doing now, chief. Preparing for that move to the Pentagon, isn't it? Probably there'll be lots of stuff to warn us about from there, and aggressive measures to be taken. Just remember, well, you know.
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Labels: cybersecurity, Panetta, S. J. Perelman
posted by KenInNY @ 2:00 PM
2 comments
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2 Comments:
Panetta's comments signal the beginning of another step in transferring more hundreds of billions of dollars from our public treasury into the coffers of the National Security Complex. I'm sure the RFP's are being drafted as he speaks and the usual list of suspects will be lining up to get their fare share of our tax dollars to combat the next real or imagined rogue we face.
One can lay odds and wager money that whatever Panetta et al. comes up with it will eventually cost far more than had been estimated, won't work worth a damn and will further infringe on our civil liberties.
Yeah, PTC, that's kind of what I'm hearing too. And now it appears we've got defense and intelligence all together in one big happy tent, not likely to produce exactly tiptop defense or intelligence.
But, as you point out, at spectacular expense.
Cheers (?),
Ken
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