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Obama Authorizes Penalties For Foreign Cyber Attackers
An anonymous reader writes President Barack Obama has today signed an executive order extending the U.S. administration's power to respond to malicious cyberattacks and espionage campaigns. The order enforces financial sanctions on foreign hackers who action attacks against American businesses, institutions and citizens. It will enable the secretary of the Treasury, along with the attorney general and secretary of State, to inflict penalties on cyber criminals behind hacking attacks which "create a significant threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy or economic health or financial stability of the United States," Obama said. Sanctions could include freezing of assets or a total ban on commercial trade.
Obama has no authority to impose sanctions on anybody for these acts, unless (1) Congress passes a law that says he does or (2) a foreign country says he does, creating jurisdiction. Neither has happened.
Obama said "From now on, we have the power to freeze their assets, make it harder for them to do business with U.S. companies, and limit their ability to profit from their misdeeds" in the making (apparently) of an executive order. If the power existed, it existed prior to Mr. Obama's order because it was authorized by 1 or 2 above. Mr. Obama's declarations of power are worthy of the bottom of my birdcage.
This idiot of a reporter at The Stack dot com thinks that an executive order is "legislation". Someone should inform her that legislation almost always appears in the U.S. Code, not in some press release on the White House Blog. I can't wait for this administration to try to enforce these sanctions: they're going to get tossed out of court on their rear ends if they try.
Ever been in the military? Nothing involves more administrative procedures then military action. Even during our Civil War there were formal procedures to determine precisely what you were allowed to do to that dude on the gray coat.
As for your claims about statutory basis, I fully understand that Americans have this broad-based-delusion that Congress has a significant say over what the military actually does beyond a) the budget, and b) officer promotions; but there is simply no Constitutional basis for that claim. There's statutory basis, but the basis is generally "Congress pitched a huge hissy fit when President Jefferson used his powers to unilaterally invade the Barbary Pirates so he went along with it when they proposed a retroactive statute to authorize the operation." Then you get case law based on the resulting hissy-fit statutes, but here's the key thing:
Nobody ever claimed that anybody had the legal Power to Order the Fleet back into port after Jefferson sent them to Libya solely on his say-so. Nobody tried to make the legal case Nixon couldn't bomb Cambodia stand up in Court. The hissy-fit statutes like the War Powers Act are legitimate to the extent they are used by Congress to explain what, precisely, it intends to fund when it funds the military. They are clearly not legitimate to the extent that they could actually be used against a President in a Court of Law.
What's going on in this case is simple: it's established that Commanders-in-Chief can freeze the bank accounts of enemies of the US. This did require a statute, the PATRIOT Act, because it would not have been in the toolbox of an 18th-century monarch or George Washington. But now that it's established, and it's widely considered to have been a useful military tool against Al Qaeda, the administration can use it against anyone it thinks is a military opponent. Congress will bitch, because they always bitch.
But that doesn't mean PLA Col. Wu's attempt to get his bank account bank will actually work.
Good grief people know so little of history I'd be amazed if you knew who your granddad really was! The US has never been involved in war for altruistic purposes. It has been about power and money grabs since the mid to late 1800s. Stop believing everything you are told and actually study for once in your pathetic life. Look at the big picture instead of what someone told you, because more often than not you have been told WRONG! If you want an eye opener which summarizes US war for profit start with Carol Quigley's Tragedy and Hope. Unfortunately this is not, and never has been, about US people making the US some great wealthy country. This is about a small select group of people that happen to hold well over 98% of the worlds wealth today (up from about 90% in the 1970s).
Good Lord man, go read about how much money the Bush family made funding Hitler as a starter. Yeah, THAT Bush family. Oh I know, we have had over 100 years of bumbling idiots in Federal offices and nothing has ever been planned either. Conspiracy is restricted to the poor and middle class, a rich guy would never think to do something like that.
Although I will concede that jurisdiction is a muddled concept with IT systems, but the following is true: They attack and/or penetrate IT systems that are located on US soil. Under international conventions, this is a crime. This is no different that when I throw a rock across the US/Canada border and damage your car, did the crime happen in the US or Canada? But even in China and North Korea there are laws against damaging IT systems and I am quite sure that they don't have exclusions for US IT systems. Now either they are private citizens and thus it is a criminal act and they are criminals or this is a government sanctioned act and they are soldiers and this is an act of war (i.e. not a crime).