“An electronic Pearl Harbor”

13. November 2009 by admin.

Last Sunday, a report by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes discussed the threat of cyber terrorism.

At the center of his report, Kroft interviewed Jim Lewis who directs the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  According to Lewis, the United States has already experienced “an electronic Pearl Harbor.”  Lewis continued, “Some unknown foreign power, and honestly, we don’t know who it is, broke into the Department of Defense, to the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, probably the Department of Energy, probably NASA. They broke into all of the high-tech agencies, all of the military agencies, and downloaded terabytes of information.  Someone was able to get past the firewall and encryption devices of one of the most sensitive U.S. military computer systems and stay inside for several days,” he stated.  The system he referred to is the CENTCOM network, which is our military’s control center for fighting wars.  Lewis said that the hackers sat inside the network, tracking information and documents “like they were part of military command.”  According to Lewis, this is the “most significant” breach of security ever “acknowledged by the Pentagon.”

Proof that the Obama administration is weak militarily and soft on terrorism?  No, wait!  These cyber terrorism events actually took place in 2007 and 2008!

But how could that be?  Haven’t Bush and Cheney proudly declared that, whatever their other failings, they kept America safe from terrorists after 9/11?  And hasn’t Dick Cheney expressed his concerns, make that outrage, over Obama’s approach to terrorism?  The very same Dick Cheney who accused Obama of weakness for making overtures to American’s enemies.  The Dick Cheney who has derided Obama for vowing to close Guantanamo.  The Dick Cheney who is furious over Attorney General Holder’s investigation into the torture of prisoners.  The Dick Cheney who accused President Obama of “dithering” on Afghanistan.  Yes, that Dick.

I guess in Cheney’s mind the hacking of our government computers (including those that control our weapons) doesn’t qualify as an attack.  Regardless, he’ll probably try to place the blame on Al Gore for inventing the Internet.

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