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Medieval Medicine: Mortal Remedies, Suspicious Cures

I don't know about you all, but I'm not altogether impressed with the work to date of the Homeland Security agency.

I for one do not feel any safer than before this huge bureaucracy was created after 9/11. Tick off just these three items from the long list of evidence ...
- Warning us of threats - the color scheme was downright silly from the start, then became untrustworthy when it was shown that heightened alerts were timed for political effect
- Protecting us from our airplanes - The Transportation Safety Administration was smart when they sealed off airplane cockpits after 9/11, but that's where it stopped for me. I fail to see how making me take off my shoes and my belt and pull out my laptop, how frisking old ladies, how fighting with nursing mothers over their baby bottles, how confiscating shampoo, hand lotion, and nail clippers helps us more than hurts us. Have we gone crazy?
- Protecting us from our borders - The Border Patrol intends to build along the US/Mexico border, while many local officials fight off their efforts. The bad guys have to realize that a fence in Mexico would just make entry from Canada that much more attractive, or for that matter, sailing in along the coast would not be so hard. It seems we're much more afraid of the cultural threat of more illegal Hispanics than we are of terrorists.

You get the picture - it's not an inspiring track record, especially considering how much money we're spent in order to be safer.

Yet our ports for one thing remain vulnerable, as do our nation's chemical facilities, and indeed, much of the rest of our national infrastructure.

So I'm not exactly filled with warm feelings when I read today that Homeland Security is concerned about the safety of the Internet. I'm concerned too, but in a different way. And after reading this editorial in today's New York Times The Information Highway Patrol, I'm not sure this particular patient can stand this particular doctor's cure. It sounds more like applying leeches to bleed the patient to remove the evil spirits. No thanks.

Getting the NSA and 2,000 workers involved in a secret plan to "secure" our nation's vital information infrastructure sounds quite suspicious, especially in light of recent revelations on other domestic surveillance programs detailed in my recent posts on this site. And when members of the Congressional oversight committee are kept in the dark, I get even more uneasy.

I would offer one small piece of advice - the more diverse our community of Internet Service Providers, the harder it would be for anyone to tear down the Internet. The more dispersed its centers of control, the more difficult it is as a target. The way to attack a network is to go for the hubs, those critical areas of concentrated activity. So the more hubs there are, the less damage taking out one of them would cause.

I believe our security from threats to infrastructure will come more from spreading out the critical pieces, so that if one piece is lost, the body does not suffer so much. We need to get our protection from the private marketplace. I don't believe our security will be improved by letting our government keep ever more secrets or spend ever more money to gather more and more sensitive information, while at the same time putting more and more eggs into the few baskets of very large telecom and cable service providers. I don't get it.

Read the editorial below and see if you're not just a little concerned about the proposed cure to the problem of a vulnerable Internet.

No one can envy the Department of Homeland Security its multifarious responsibilities stretching from port security to cyberspace. But surely the agency is obliged to respond fully to Congressional inquiries about its murky plan to monitor government and private communications in the name of protecting the information infrastructure from terrorists. Details have been vague, but the plan reportedly involves some 2,000 workers and the expertise of the National Security Agency and other espionage specialists to guard the Internet.

It's no wonder members of Congress are curious, considering the administration's subversive track record of domestic spying. Members on the Homeland Security panels - who complain they are too much in the dark - have asked the agency to hold off on plans to unveil the program as early as next month. Constitutional and privacy questions need to be adequately answered first.

The nation remains unprepared for a major Internet crash, according to the latest accountability report from Congressional monitors. A proper defense obviously requires close cooperation from experts in government and private industry. A bit of progress was noted in the hiring of an assistant secretary to coordinate cybersecurity. But Congressional monitors find the effort lagging, with a major reason the private sector's mistrust of the leadership at the Department of Homeland Security.

The agency has a huge task, securing the communications infrastructure while protecting the government's ability to communicate in an emergency. It cannot afford to undermine that effort by withholding information from Congress. Answer the questions; make the case along the delicate ridge between national security and constitutional privacy.

The citizens are knowledgeable users of the Internet and sense both its vital role and fragility. They want it protected. They just need informed reassurances by way of their elected representatives, not vaporous edicts from the administration.

Posted on October 29, 2007 at 09:06 AM

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