Even though the new Obama cybersecurity bill (itself mostly a copy of the failed CISPA bill) centers on civilian Internet infrastructure and giving the government easier access to individual Americans’ personal data, the Pentagon is finding ways to make it all about them.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is demanding Congress endorse the bill on national security grounds, insisting that while the military’s own computers are “robust” the government needs more power to insure that the rest of the computers on the Internet are not vulnerable.
The bill gives businesses immunity from privacy lawsuits for any personal data shared with the government under a “national security” pretext, even if such sharing violates the law or the company’s own privacy agreements with its customers.
Gen. Dempsey insists the US military needs to have the “upper hand” on the Internet, and that this bill would do that, saying it was time to make “the enemy play uphill.”
In this case, it seems, “the enemy” is just privacy in general.