CybersecurityContradictions in U.S. cybersecurity policy
The United States wants a secure cyberspace, but its intelligence agencies have found enormous utility in using their own computer hacking capabilities to collect confidential information from foreign adversaries; this raises the question of how the U.S. government can push for global cybersecurity while at the same time using cyber means to collect intelligence on potentially threatening regimes such as Iran
Chris Bronk, a fellow of information technology policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, calls on the intelligence community jointly to create a policy on cybersecurity and determine the degree to which the United States should protect intellectual property and national infrastructure of other nations. Bronk also comments on how aggressive the United States should be in its proactive cyber-spying activities.
The report, “Treasure Trove or Trouble: Cyber-Enabled Intelligence and International Politics,” was published in the National Military Intelligence Association’s American Intelligence Journal, a leading magazine for intelligence professionals.
“America wants a secure cyberspace, but its intelligence agencies have found enormous utility in using their own computer hacking capabilities to collect confidential information from foreign adversaries,” Bronk said. “This raises the question of how the U.S. government can push for global cybersecurity while at the same time using cyber means to collect intelligence on potentially threatening regimes such as Iran.”
Bronk kick-starts the debate on how altruistic the United States can be on a secure cyberspace when it may benefit enormously from the insecurity of others’ information networks.
“There remains an enormous vacuum in policy as to how America’s intelligence agencies, many of whom are charged with roles is securing cyberspace under the Lieberman bill, can continue to use clandestine cyber means in collecting intelligence, or even engaging in covert action against other countries and transnational groups,” Bronk said. “This is an issue that needs consideration and input not just within Washington political circles, but far beyond the Beltway, including firms in Silicon Valley and other tech centers around the U.S.”
Bronk’s last assignment was in the Office of eDiplomacy, the U.S. Department of State’s internal think tank on information technology, knowledge management, computer security, and interagency collaboration. He now teaches classes on the intersection of computing and politics in Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering.
