Source: Lee Rogers, Blacklisted News
In the midst of the holiday season Congress decided to pass the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 or NDAA. The bill was later signed into law by President Obama with little if any fanfare.
When this happened much of the corporate media was focusing in on invented news stories like the Duck Dynasty garbage. What’s really sad is that it is doubtful that many members of Congress have even read the bill at all. If they did in fact read it and voted for it knowing what was in it than there is little doubt that they have violated their oath of office and should be held accountable. The NDAA contains a number of highly questionable sections that run contrary to the principles articulated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, language contained in the bill appears to authorize cyber warfare operations against the American people.
One particularly horrifying section is section 1071 which authorizes the Department of Defense to enhance its capacity to analyze captured records. Apparently the National Security Agency by itself doesn’t have enough capabilities to analyze all of the records it captures so the Department of Defense is going to help. The section authorizes the Secretary of Defense to establish a center called the Conflict Records Research Center. The purpose of this new organization is to establish a research database to analyze records captured from countries, organizations and individuals now or once hostile to the United States. It defines a captured record as a document, audio file, video file, or other material captured during combat operations.
This language is purposefully broad and can be interpreted to also include records captured from American citizens who are simply angry at the criminality of the federal government. After all, the language infers that they can analyze records from individuals who are now or were once hostile to the United States and provides no exception based on citizenship or nationality. Due to the fact that the Internet is now increasingly being described as a 21st century battlefield, combat operations can also fall under the umbrella of offensive cyber warfare operations.
Section 1071 also allows the Secretary of Defense to accept gifts from any source that would enhance the operational capabilities or defray the costs of the Conflict Records Research Center. Sources allowed include corporations, foreign governments and private charities. The only exception is if the gifts or donations would compromise or appear to compromise the ability or integrity of the Department of Defense or any of its employees.
This language pretty much gives the green light for all sorts of dirty dealings and corporate espionage activities since the operational purpose of the Conflict Records Research Center is to be able to analyze as many records as possible. The more records and data that they have the more analysis they are able to perform. So by default this facility will be able to accept information from almost anyone. It makes it almost impossible to question their integrity by accepting data from anyone who volunteers information regardless of where it comes from.
All of this is even more concerning when one considers that the NDAA also has a lot of new cyber warfare initiatives. Section 931 through Section 942 contains a bunch of crazy stuff dealing with the world of cyber warfare..
Section 932 authorizes the creation of a position known as The Principal Cyber Advisor which will be responsible for supervising offensive and defensive cyber warfare activities. Obviously this position would not be created unless the federal government is intending upon involving itself in both offensive and defensive cyber warfare well into the future.
Section 933 instructs the Secretary of Defense to conduct a broad mission analysis of the government’s cyber warfare capabilities. The required analysis will focus primarily on how they will manage, increase and enhance their personnel assigned to cyber warfare operations. It even disallows the reduction of cyber warfare personnel assigned to the Air National Guard.
