Are We Now Buying the Rope On
Which We Will Hang? By Kevin D. Freeman, 12/29/15,
There’s
an infamous quote attributed to Vladimir Lenin (and also to Joseph Stalin): “The Capitalists
will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”
The idea was that America was so corrupted and so greedy that we
would eventually disregard our own national security in pursuit of a short-term
profit. Ironically, it turned out that the Soviet system died under the weight
of its own corruption. Communists, at least in practice rather than theory,
tend to be just as greedy (if not more so) than capitalists. The Soviet Union
is gone and America remains.
“The text of the Obama administration’s Trans
Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal between the United States and 11 other
countries reverses policies that were originally put into place to prevent a
foreign takeover of the nation’s infrastructure, argues political consultant
Curtis Ellis, who adds that the deal threatens U.S. national security
interests.
Ellis explained:
Previous U.S. trade pacts stated in no
uncertain terms that the national security interests of the United States are
determined solely by the U.S. government and supersede any provisions of the
pacts. The U.S. government had unfettered power to protect our national security
interests as it deemed necessary – even if its actions might violate the terms
of a trade agreement.
But the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement
reverses this precedent. As a result, other countries could claim our national
security interests violate the T.P.P. agreement and force the U.S. to pay
billions of dollars in damages.
Ellis says that Chapter 11 in the more than
5,000-page trade deal provides foreign investors with special rights to acquire
U.S. land, businesses, natural resources and investments.
‘Under Chapter 28 and Chapter 29, these
foreign investors could do an end-run around U.S. courts and sue the U.S.
before an international panel, known as an investor-state dispute tribunal, if
they feel American law violates their ‘rights’ under the TPP,’ Ellis argues.
Currently, the Committee on Foreign Investment
in the United States (CFIUS) reviews pending foreign investments in the U.S. to
determine if they pose a threat to national security and can recommend the
president shut down investments deemed a threat. Under previous trade
agreements, foreign investors would have no recourse.
But under the T.P.P., the Sultan of Brunei,
the billionaire autocrat who rules his T.P.P. country under Sharia law, could
sue for billions of dollars if CFIUS denied his bid to buy a company providing
security to U.S. ports and airports.
He would bring his case before a foreign
tribunal that could force taxpayers to award him compensation for “lost
profits.” The tribunal, staffed by three unelected lawyers hailing from anywhere
in the world, would have the power to second-guess the U.S. government on what
constitutes a threat to our national security.
Additionally, the Islamic Sultanate of Brunei — a country that’s a
party to President Obama’s trade agenda — has outlawed Christmas and threatens
to place offenders in prison.”
Another frightening example can be seen in how we have outsourced a good
deal of coding and cyber security to firms tied to the Russian regime.
Really? Can it be true
that the Pentagon (inadvertently) outsourced critical coding to Russian firms?
Sadly, the answer is that this happened (despite being against the law and the
two firms involved in the work had to pay multi-million dollar fines when
caught).
From The Daily Beast
on November 4:
By Patrick Malone, Center for Public Integrity — November 4, 2015
The Pentagon was tipped off in 2011 by a
longtime Army contractor that Russian computer programmers were helping to
write computer software for sensitive U.S. military communications systems,
setting in motion a four-year federal investigation that ended this week with a
multimillion-dollar fine against two firms involved in the work.
Greed drove the contractor to employ the
Russian programmers, he said in his March 2011 complaint, which was sealed
until late last week. He said they worked for one-third the rate that American
programmers with the requisite security clearances could command. His
accusations were denied by the firms that did the programming work.
“On at least one occasion, numerous viruses were loaded onto the DISA
[Defense Information Systems Agency] network as a result of code written by the
Russian programmers and installed on servers in the DISA secure system,”
Kingsley said in his complaint, filed under the federal False Claims Act in
U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2011.
[To CONTINUE READING at The Daily Beast….]
Unfortunately, this is
not isolated. We also know that a good deal of American cybersecurity in the
private sector has been hired out to a Russian company with close ties to the
Russian government.
From Bloomberg earlier
this year:
March 19, 2015
Kaspersky Lab has published reports on alleged electronic espionage by the
U.S., Israel, and the U.K.—but hasn’t looked as aggressively at Russia.
Kaspersky Lab sells security software,
including antivirus programs recommended by big-box stores and other U.S. PC
retailers. The Moscow-based company ranks sixth in revenue among
security-software makers, taking in $667 million in 2013, and is a favorite
among Best Buy’s Geek Squad technicians and reviewers on Amazon.com. Founder
and Chief Executive Officer Eugene Kaspersky was educated at a KGB-sponsored
cryptography institute, then worked for Russian military intelligence, and in
2007, one of the company’s Japanese ad campaigns used the slogan “A Specialist
in Cryptography from KGB.” The sales tactic, a local partner’s idea, was
“quickly removed by headquarters,” according to Kaspersky Lab, as the company
recruited senior managers in the U.S. and Europe to expand its business and
readied an initial public offering with a U.S. investment firm.
In 2012, however, Kaspersky Lab abruptly changed course. Since then,
high-level managers have left or been fired, their jobs often filled by people
with closer ties to Russia’s military or intelligence services. Some of these
people actively aid criminal investigations by the FSB, the KGB’s successor,
using data from some of the 400 million customers who rely on Kaspersky Lab’s
software, say six current and former employees who declined to discuss the matter
publicly because they feared reprisals. This closeness starts at the top:
Unless Kaspersky is traveling, he rarely misses a weekly banya (sauna) night
with a group of about 5 to 10 that usually includes Russian intelligence
officials….
[To CONTINUE READING at Bloomberg Business Week…]
There are other
examples of Russian Cyber Security firms that are potential national security
threats. One was reported by Bill Gertz on December 16:
By Bill Gertz – – Wednesday, December 16, 2015
U.S. intelligence agencies recently identified a Russian cybersecurity firm,
which has expertise in testing the network vulnerabilities of the electrical
grid, financial markets and other critical infrastructure, as having close ties
to Moscow’s Federal Security Service, the civilian intelligence service.
The relationship between the company and the
FSB, as the spy agency is known, has heightened fears among U.S.
cyberintelligence officials that Moscow is stepping up covert efforts to
infiltrate computer networks that control critical U.S. infrastructure such as
oil and gas pipelines and transportation.
The effort appears to be part of FSB and
Russian military cyberwarfare reconnaissance targeting, something the Pentagon
calls preparation of the battlefield for future cyberattacks. The Russian
company is taking steps to open a U.S. branch office as part of the
intelligence-gathering, said officials familiar with reports of the effort who
spoke on background.
Officials familiar with reports about the company did not identify it
by name. However, security officials are quietly alerting government security
officials and industry cybersecurity chiefs about the Russian firm and its
covert plans for operations in the United States.
[To CONTINUE READING at The Washington Times…]
Is there any wonder that Russian hackers have been so successful in
penetrating control systems?
The industrial control systems (ICS) that run
the United States’ critical infrastructure have been targeted by Russian threat
actors, according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
In a statement made last week on worldwide
cyber threats before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
Clapper warned of the increasing threat to national and economic security, and
the expansion of attack methods, targeted systems and victims.
“Politically motivated cyber attacks are now a growing reality, and
foreign actors are reconnoitering and developing access to US critical
infrastructure systems, which might be quickly exploited for disruption if an
adversary’s intent became hostile. In addition, those conducting cyber
espionage are targeting US government, military, and commercial networks on a
daily basis,” the US intel chief said.
After a series of launch failures in the 1990s
cost the Air Force six satellites, the military began searching for a reliable,
cheap alternative to its existing rocket engines. The Clinton administration at
the time was pushing to strengthen ties with Moscow, and the U.S. opted to use
Russian-made engines that were then considered sophisticated and reliable space
technology.
But the policy of partnering with Russia in
space has turned from a foreign-policy success to a source of friction, as
relations between Moscow and Washington have soured over the annexation of
Crimea and the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.
This week, Russian officials said they would
cut off U.S. access to its engines and would seek to prevent the Air Force from
using them to launch national security satellites.
The U.S. relies on Russian engines not only to launch spy satellites,
but also to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
The Russians (as well
as the Chinese and Iranians) understand modern warfare and have
been covering their bases in case we become adversarial. We can know their playbook by
watching actions in Ukraine.
The upsetting thing is that despite this knowledge, we continue to ignore the
national security implications and outsource critical capabilities to potential
adversaries. Previously, we were warned that we might greedily sell the rope on
which we would hang. Now, however, it seems we may be the buyers of that rope
instead, even if the end result is the same. It is time we wake up and make American national security and sovereignty
a priority.
http://affluentinvestor.com/2015/12/are-we-now-buying-the-rope-on-which-we-will-hang/
