The Coming StormHere’s another section from Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker piece on Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell that shouldn’t be overlooked. Wright reports on McConnell’s Cyber-Security Policy, a plan that “will propose restrictions that are certain to be unpopular….
In order for cyberspace to be policed, Internet activity will have to be closely monitored. Ed Giorgio, who is working with McConnell on the plan, said that would mean giving the government the authority to examine the content of any e-mail, file transfer, or Web search. “Google has records that could help in a cyber-investigation,” he said. Giorgio warned me, “We have a saying in this business: ‘Privacy and security are a zero-sum game.’” (my emphasis)
With the cyber-security initiative, McConnell is asking the country to confront a dilemma: Americans will have to trust the government not to abuse the authority it must have in order to protect our networks, and yet, historically, the government has not proved worthy of that trust. “FISA reform will be a walk in the park compared to this,” McConnell said. “This is going to be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that we’re going to screw around with this until something horrendous happens.”
After Siobhan Gorman of The Baltimore Sun — now of The Wall Street Journal — first broke the story of the Cyber-Security Policy in September, the plan seemed relatively close to completion. But then Democrats on the Hill, namely House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), demanded to review it before it was launched. Since then, it hasn’t been clear how close it is to completion. Wright reports that it’s still in “the draft stage.” With the FISA debate far from over, it seems likely that the Cyber-Security plan will remain on hold.