Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 63 posts

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#21

Post by bcoates »

tptacek wrote: post #9

Have any of you actually read the executive order? If not, did you perhaps notice who the sources were for the stories being written about it today? There was a cybersecurity order on the table last year (it wasn't enacted). HN got up in arms about it. Some of us read it. Guess what? It concerned itself almost entirely with the operational security of the federal government itself (which operates the world's largest…

Are you talking about this? http://www.lawfareblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/White-...

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#22

Post by tptacek »

ihsw wrote: post #20
tptacek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An executive order that forbad private companies from connecting to the Internet would be far more of an executive overreach than anything proposed for cybersecurity by the executive, the Democrats in the Senate, or the Republicans in the House.

Then those private companies shouldn't be in charge of critical infrastructure.

So we should federalize electric companies?

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#23

Post by ihsw »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #2

Seems pretty sensible to me, though some folks seem to be linking it with the revival of CISPA.

The problem is the bi-directional information sharing between private companies and the multiple levels of government -- it should be one-way (private companies -> government).

There is a very large potential for abuse and we will have no recourse.

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#24

Post by crusso »

rayiner wrote: post #13
jostmey wrote: post #6

I find it worrisome when government declares it is time to protect the internet. The internet has flourished just fine without intervention.

The internet was born out of government intervention.

He said "flourished". The state of being implemented by some basic government-funded research is almost completely disconnected from the time when commercial interests took the idea and ran with it -- causing it to "flourish".

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#25

Post by logn »

tptacek wrote: post #9

Have any of you actually read the executive order? If not, did you perhaps notice who the sources were for the stories being written about it today? There was a cybersecurity order on the table last year (it wasn't enacted). HN got up in arms about it. Some of us read it. Guess what? It concerned itself almost entirely with the operational security of the federal government itself (which operates the world's largest…

I'm not sure where the executive order is published, if anywhere, but it's a direct response to the failed CISPA in Congress. EFF criticized CISPA as violating 4th amendment rights by giving government new powers to spy on the public. Also opposed: Tim Berners-Lee, ACLU, Demand Progress, Reporters Without Borders, Mozilla, ACM.

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#26

Post by stevvooe »

tptacek wrote: post #18
rgrieselhuber wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't have said it better myself. This is exactly why legislation is a process that requires oversight and accountability. I'll never understand why people are willing to write the president a blank check.

Yet another illustration of the unintended consequences of authorizations by Congress for war (obviously, in this case, an unavoidable war, but still). The order to authorize internment camps was the result of two forces: * Intense and direct recommendations from FDR's entire war staff and intelligence apparatus, which believed that there was an unacceptably high probability that Japanese and German populations would…

If this is not an illustration of an executive power grab, what power authorizes the executive branch to round up a group of people?

Even so, legal or not, there is no valid reason to legitimize the internment of Japanese-American citizens.

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#27

Post by rayiner »

stevvooe wrote: post #15
rayiner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The principle underlying executive orders is that they don't make laws, but guide enforcement discretion that the President already has. I'm curious to see what executive orders you think overstep the line from guiding enforcement discretion to outright lawmaking.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9066

Enforcing Congress's laws isn't the only power the President has under the Constitution. He is also commander in chief of the military. Telling the military to round up and detain people is an exercise of that power, and does not violate any separation of powers concerns.

When the people are American citizens on American soil, the action may very well run afoul of other Constitutional provisions, such as due process, but it's not an example of executive usurpation of a power that belongs to Congress.

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#28

Post by bcoates »

ihsw wrote: post #23
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #2

Seems pretty sensible to me, though some folks seem to be linking it with the revival of CISPA.

The problem is the bi-directional information sharing between private companies and the multiple levels of government -- it should be one-way (private companies -> government). There is a very large potential for abuse and we will have no recourse.

I don't want information sharing that way either. We have (sadly, increasingly circumvented or weakened) laws banning that for a reason.

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#29

Post by skylan_q »

tptacek wrote: post #8
jostmey wrote: post #6

I find it worrisome when government declares it is time to protect the internet. The internet has flourished just fine without intervention.

So did the wild west.

I never knew why they called it the wild west. It was very tame.

Re: Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

#30

Post by rayiner »

harold wrote: post #19
tptacek wrote: post #9

Have any of you actually read the executive order? If not, did you perhaps notice who the sources were for the stories being written about it today? There was a cybersecurity order on the table last year (it wasn't enacted). HN got up in arms about it. Some of us read it. Guess what? It concerned itself almost entirely with the operational security of the federal government itself (which operates the world's largest…

I remember a time not long ago when skepticism of government was considered healthy, even here on HN.

There's not that fine a line between skepticism and ignorant paranoia. Many people here on HN react in a paranoid manner to government initiatives without bothering to even read the proposals or educate themselves about the situation beyond what they hear from the echo chamber.
Post reply on HN