President Obama Threw A Cyberwar.... And No One Showed Up

from the firing-off-a-blank-check-from-the-'Executive-Order'-account dept

Fri, May 27th 2016 8:31am — Tim Cushing

Last spring, in the wake of the Sony hack, President Obama threw a cyberwar. And no one showed up.

In April 2015, President Obama issued Executive Order 13694 declaring a national emergency to deal with the threat of hostile cyber activity against the United States.

But six months later, the emergency powers that he invoked to punish offenders had still not been used because no qualifying targets were identified, according to a newly released Treasury Department report.

It certainly sounded scary enough. Obama said things about "cyber threats" being a serious threat to national security and the US economy. The state of emergency, according to the President, would create a "targeted tool" for combating our cyber-enemies.

This state of emergency is just one more in a line of uninterrupted states of emergencies dating back to the mid-1970s. A perpetual state of emergency is far more useful to the government than a "targeted tool," so a declaration of (cyber) war against a bunch of noncombatants still served a purpose, if only indirectly.

It started the ball rolling on the CISPA/CISA resurgence, which eventually "passed" after being attached to the coattails of a budget bill with far more momentum and support, as few legislators were willing to stare down the barrel of a government shutdown just to prevent a badly-written cyber-bill from passing.

More importantly, the president's statement and executive order gave the administration permission to do things it doesn't normally get to do.

Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.

Declaring a state of emergency allows for the potential wreaking of havoc in taxpayers' lives. And even if these powers go unexercised (or anything), it still costs the taxpayers money.

Even though it generated no policy outputs, implementation of the executive order nevertheless incurred costs of “approximately $760,000, most of which represent wage and salary costs for federal personnel,” the Treasury report said.

The expenses of national states of emergency aren't being offset by seized funds or assets related to the targets of the executive order. The Treasury Department's report logically notes that zero targets means zero seizures. According to another report quoted by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, the long-running "state of emergency" prompted by various North Korean actions is resulting in less than ~$60,000 a year -- compared to an operational cost of at least $125,000/month (presumably the North Korean state of emergency is more expensive than the "cyberwar" one). No one really expects a "break even" government, but it's inarguable that targeting known or unknown entities via executive orders really isn't doing much to cripple their operations.

Dot-Cyber-1015 (PDF)Dot-Cyber-1015 (Text)

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: administration, cybersecurity, cyberwar, executive order 13694, president obama, white house

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 8:39am

I thought the USA has been in a non ending state of emergency since a war on terror that will never end was declared after 9/11
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- DigDug, 27 May 2016 @ 9:08am
  
  Re:
  There was no formal declaration of war by Congress.
  This is why most, if not all of the antics by the Executive branch and its agents are not only illegal, but unconstitutional.
  
  The Patriot act itself is unconstitutional.
  
  Without a formal declaration of war by Congress, the President's executive orders exceed the authority limited outside a time of war.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - DannyB (profile), 27 May 2016 @ 9:13am
    
    Re: Re:
    But . . . we have always been at war with Eurasia. Or was it Eastasia? I forget.
    
    The way to understand the world is that 1984 was a guide book. A roadmap. And in typical government fashion, it took them a long time to come close to getting it implemented properly.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 12:36pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      you bombed libya back into the stone age for trying to go on their own gold standard currency
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 9:24am
    
    Re: Re:
    Tell that to the politicians
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 11:46am
    
    Re: Re:
    hasn't stopped him from having countries he doesn't like bombed into oblivion.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Uriel-238 (profile), 27 May 2016 @ 9:28am
  
  Quoth Wikipedia
  As of 2015 more than thirty emergencies under the IEEPA remain active regarding various subjects, the oldest of which was declared in 1979 with regard to the government of Iran.
  
  and
  
  The United States declared a national emergency in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks that remains in effect. This emergency suspends certain provisions of law that limit the size of the military and the duration of military service.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 12:38pm
    
    Re: Quoth Wikipedia
    also removes any constitutional rights that get in their way of ruling as a tyranny coincidently and unofficially.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 1 Jun 2016 @ 12:29pm
  
  Re:
  Nah. We've been in a state of emergency since the 1970s. Terror is just the newest name.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 8:53am

Lol, it's not that they can't find the targets or whatever, it's because they can't outright attack say China over it. So if anything these "anti-cyberwar powers" will only be used selectively to punish some little guy, like the Anonymous people perhaps, and parade them in front of the media for how effective the powers have been.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TechDescartes (profile), 27 May 2016 @ 9:15am

U.S. ... E.?
This state of emergency is just one more in a line of uninterrupted states of emergencies dating back to the mid-1970s.
Welcome to the United States of Emergencies.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Anonymous Coward (profile), 27 May 2016 @ 9:26am

Military Industrial Political Espionage Complex
Actually I think it has been longer than that. President Eisenhower warned us in 1961 during his farewell address about a state of emergency that had crept into being over the previous years. It has been talked about extensively, and ignored completely. I think it would be fair to say that the Military-Industrial complex has been co-opted by both politicians and espionage agencies. Each of these entities strive to roll over the general populace with the intent of everlasting power, held by the incumbent for as long as they live.

Frankly, I am surprised there isn't more money being dumped into research that extends lifespans just so these corrupt, power hungry monsters can exercise that power one year longer.

One mere state of emergency is inconsequential when there are so many to choose from: drugs, poverty, the environment, non-governmental entities who wish to attack the US, anyone who doesn't look like us, The Domino Theory applied...everywhere, world trade, personal empiricism, communists, non-communists, wannabe communists, terrorists who are not us, terrorists who are us but we don't like, copyright haters, patent haters, countries who fail to bow down to our corporate partners...etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 10:06am

Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens.
So if the emergency ended, we would have no more:

- Civil asset forfeiture ("seize property"; "seize commodities")
- Foreign military deployments not explicitly authorized by Congress ("assign military forces abroad")
- TSA, no-fly list ("seize ... transportation"; "restrict travel")
- Intrusive tax code ("control the lives ...")

Sign me up!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2016 @ 10:58am
  
  Re:
  You are already signed up!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
That One Guy (profile), 27 May 2016 @ 11:30am

Surprising
At this point I imagine it's only a matter of time until they declare a 'state of emergency' because the previous 'state of emergency' is almost over with, and if the government loses any of it's power then clearly the entire world will end and the sun will go supernova.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Skeeter, 27 May 2016 @ 2:00pm

War on What?
The 'War on Terrorism' is, by default, a 'never-ending-war' anyhow. Why is anyone surprised 15-years after it started, that it is still going on, still eating Personal Rights, and still hungry? I guess the supporters haven't figured out that the only ones suffering from 'this war' are Americans and our Rights. Nope, too much profit to be made in 'perpetuating the lie'.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- JBDragon (profile), 31 May 2016 @ 8:38am
  
  Re: War on What?
  Well we have the War on Drugs, and the War on Poverty. What else? These things go on forever.
  
  Why does the U.S. have Military bases all over the world in a number of countries? Why have we been in the Europe all these years? These country's can't take care of themselves, we have to do it? Can you imagine if France had a Military base in California? How about the U.K. with a base in New York? We're in more then 100 countries and some with many bases. Seems like a world Invader to me not to mention pretty costly.
  
  So we really are the World Police!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Whatever (profile), 28 May 2016 @ 7:06pm

It's more a symptom of the broken political processes and systems in the US. There is no simple way for the President to put the focus on any area unless congress agrees. The current (and long standing) adversarial attitudes mean that even the basics are no longer getting done.

The best example is that a sitting President should be able to select a Supreme Court Judge and get an up or down vote from the congress in a reasonable time. Instead, the process is entirely political and Republicans have stated that they won't consider a candidate unless it comes from the NEXT President, almost a year after the court lost it's judge.

So in order to deal with cyber crime issues, the only way the President can do anything is through executive orders and "war on..." type things, because that's all he's got left to work with.

That said, it's hard to deny that there appears to be at least some state sponsored hacking going on. Of course, you can always believe the "rogue agent" or "rogue citizen" line if you like, but the result is still sort of the same.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]