Privacy May Be a Victim in Cyberdefense Plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/us/politics/13cyber.html

In President Obama's new cyberdefense strategy he promised to provide protections for personal privacy and civil liberties. In this new cybersecurity plan he made clear that the U.S. military and the U.S. government would not be looking at our e-mail and not tracking what we do online. It is said in the article that it is very hard to try and monitor the thousands of daily attacks on security systems in the United States. The National Security Agency is supposed to be in charge of the new military command's work.

The cybersecurity effort, Mr. Obama said at the White House last month, “will not — I repeat, will not include monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic.” I personally find this rather relieving. I feel like everyone has become so worried by the amount of monitoring that could occur from the Internet, and this should be a piece of mind to know that Obama would like to try and keep our security rather than monitor our every move.

The article says that military officials say there may be a need to intercept and examine some e-mail messages sent from other countries to guard against computer viruses or potential terrorist action. Advocates say the process could ultimately be accepted as the digital equivalent of customs inspections. I see this as a good idea because ultimately it isn't prohibiting other countries access, it is providing us with additional security measures in order to protect ourselves. From my overseas traveling I have become very aware of how customs works. It is detailed and thorough. I always have felt safe.

Some administration officials have debated whether laws or regulations should be changed to allow law enforcement, the military, or intelligence agencies more access to networks or Internet providers when significant evidence of a national security threat was found. I think that this should completely be allowed. With a sufficient amount of evidence I don't see the problem. People could argue though, what exactly is a sufficient amount of evidence? Boundaries could definitely be blurred, especially when it comes to the government.

A good question was posed, "what constitutes an intrusion that violates privacy and, what is an intrusion that may be acceptable in the face of an act of war?"