***CFR and Raytheon Lobbyist have ordered preemptive strikes on the Internet
CFR has issued the directive.
THIS IS A ROCKEFELLER INITIATIVE!!!!!!!!!!!
Coming out next month: OCTOBER SURPRISE:
Summary: Right now, more than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to hack into the digital networks that undergird U.S. military operations. The Pentagon recognizes the catastrophic threat posed by cyberwarfare, and is partnering with allied governments and private companies to prepare itself.
In 2008, the U.S. Department of Defense suffered a significant compromise of its classified military computer networks. It began when an infected flash drive was inserted into a U.S. military laptop at a base in the Middle East. The flash drive's malicious computer code, placed there by a foreign intelligence agency, uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. Central Command. That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control. It was a network administrator's worst fear: a rogue program operating silently, poised to deliver operational plans into the hands of an unknown adversary.
This previously classified incident was the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever, and it served as an important wake-up call. The Pentagon's operation to counter the attack, known as Operation Buckshot Yankee, marked a turning point in U.S. cyberdefense strategy. Over the past ten years, the frequency and sophistication of intrusions into U.S. military networks have increased exponentially. Every day, U.S. military and civilian networks are probed thousands of times and scanned millions of times. And the 2008 intrusion that led to Operation Buckshot Yankee was not the only successful penetration. Adversaries have acquired thousands of files from U.S. networks and from the networks of U.S. allies and industry partners, including weapons blueprints, operational plans, and surveillance data.
As the scale of cyberwarfare's threat to U.S. national security and the U.S. economy has come into view, the Pentagon has built layered and robust defenses around military networks and inaugurated the new U.S. Cyber Command to integrate cyberdefense operations across the military. The Pentagon is now working with the Department of Homeland Security to protect government networks and critical infrastructure and with the United States' closest allies to expand these defenses internationally. An enormous amount of foundational work remains, but the U.S. government has begun putting in place various initiatives to defend the United States in the digital age.
THE THREAT ENVIRONMENT
When is a ban on lobbyists in an administration not a ban on lobbyists in an administration? When you need a lobbyist who knows how the Pentagon works to help run the defense establishment. That's the situation the new Obama Administration finds itself in. Obama nominated William J. Lynn III as his Deputy Defense Secretary in a role that would require Lynn to essentially be the chief operations officer in that mammoth bureaucracy. But Lynn was among, other things, a lobbyist for Raytheon Co., one of the nation's largest defense contractors. To not violate the new executive order the president signed yesterday, Lynn would require a waiver from the new administration. That would seem to violate the spirit of Obama's ban, something which numerous people, including the Project on Government Oversight, are now pointing out:
"POGO believes strongly in the revolving door restrictions President Barack Obama has outlined to restore integrity and ethics to government," said POGO executive director Danielle Brian. "It is because we believe so strongly in the positive impact that such a change will have that we urge the President to withdraw his nomination of William J. Lynn III as Deputy Secretary of Defense. President Obama should not compromise his standards and the effectiveness of the Department of Defense by allowing a top defense industry lobbyist to receive a waiver from these standards. The defense industry is in a class of its own among all of the industries that have had a pervasive stranglehold on public policy to advance their own financial interests."
In a 2008 lobbying report, Lynn was listed as part of a Raytheon lobbying team on budget and appropriations issues including the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, acquisition policy, missile defense, and Foreign Military Financing. The Obama Administration should not allow its ethics standards to begin with a series of waivers and loopholes which immediately undermine its good intentions.
President Barack Obama's strict new lobbying rules for cabinet members have put his administration in a difficult spot when it comes to one of its top nominees. William J. Lynn III, a former Pentagon official under President Bill Clinton and Obama's choice for deputy secretary of the Defense Department, spent the better part of the past two years lobbying for defense contractor Raytheon, federal records show. Obama's ethics rules state that ex-lobbyists in his administration cannot work on issues they lobbied on for two years:
"2. Revolving Door Ban All Appointees Entering Government. I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.
"3. Revolving Door Ban Lobbyists Entering Government. If I was a registered lobbyist within the 2 years before the date of my appointment, in addition to abiding by the limitations of paragraph 2, I will not for a period of 2 years after the date of my appointment:
(a) participate in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment;
(b) participate in the specific issue area in which that particular matter falls; or
(c) seek or accept employment with any executive agency that I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment.
That rule complicates matters for Lynn. It also affects William V. Coor, the nominee for deputy secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, who has lobbied for the nonprofit Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. But Coor has pledged not to work on any tobacco issues in his new job.
Lynn, however, lobbied the Pentagon on so many Raytheon projects -- acquisitions policy, space, intelligence and command and control, among others -- that it might be hard to find an area within the department that was untouched by his previous work.
2009- Dept of Defense, Obama Deputy Secretary of Defense
2002-2008 Raytheon Co Lobbyist2001-2002 DFI International Exec VP
1997-2001 Dept of Defense, Clinton Undersec (Comptroller)
1993-1997 Dept of Defense, Clinton Dir, Prgrm Analysis & Evaluation
1987-1993 Kennedy, Edward M Legislative Counsel
1985-1986 Institute for Defense Analyses Prof Staff
1982-1985 Center for Strategic & Intl Studies Exec Dir, Defense Project
http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=31517
Congratulations are in order to defense contractor Raytheon. The company's former Sr VP, Govt Ops & Strategy, will be brought on to help the defense industry run the Pentagon for the next four years. It was not altogether clear to some naive observers that this day would come. After all, as ABC News reports:
President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, violates his campaign pledge that no lobbyists will be allowed on his team working on subjects they've recently lobbied on, Transition officials acknowledged Friday. Officials say they were aware that Lynn had lobbied for defense giant Raytheon as recently as last summer, but they defended their pick. [Obama spokesman's justification for the hire printed here. Rest assured is the most qualified person available to serve the defense industry.] Lynn, a former undersecretary of defense in the Clinton administration, currently serves as senior vice president of government operations and strategy at Raytheon, a military contractor. The deputy defense secretary traditionally supervises hiring such contractors.
It's lucky for Raytheon that Obama did not allow prior promises to voters to muddle the priorities of the defense industry. After all, not only the next big defense procurement, but the whole trajectory of US defense policy might have been been put in unfamiliar hands.
