January 2010 Archives

In the wake of Google's threat to pull out of China over allegations that Chinese hackers penetrated the company's computer systems and stole intellectual property, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech last week extolling the five freedoms of the Internet age, what should U.S. government policy be on Internet freedom abroad?

Some senators, Sam Brownback and Arlen Specter for example, say the U.S. government should directly back censorship-busting technologies and policies. Critics say this will backfire by allowing regimes such as China and particularly Iran to say, "Look how Washington is trying to interfere in our countries again." How hard should the U.S. government push for unfettered access to the Internet in foreign countries, particularly the closed ones? And what should the Obama administration's role be in this dispute between China and Google? What other tools can the U.S. use to push worldwide Internet freedom?

To inform the discussion, here's a little background on the Google China dispute:

• Reports indicate that the Chinese hackers might have penetrated a system that Google uses to conduct lawful e-mail surveillance of foreign spies and terrorists on behalf of the U.S. government. If true, the Chinese hackers could know whom the U.S. government is ordering Google to monitor, and how the company goes about filtering those communications.

• Google has protested the Chinese government's censorship of Web searches and has threatened to stop censoring them within China. The State Department has used Google's public threats of a pull out to urge all technology companies to stand up to China. Last week, Secretary of State Clinton urged U.S. companies "to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance.... They need to consider what's right, not simply what's a quick profit."

• The dispute has Chinese senior officials doing damage control. Hoping to keep the row with Google from harming bilateral agreements with the United States, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei cautioned last week, "The Google case should not be linked with relations between the two governments and countries; otherwise, it's an over-interpretation."

• Google's announcement that it had been hacked amounts to an unprecedented admission for a major U.S. company. Clearly, the Obama administration was aware of Google's decision before it was announced, and the State Department has used it to tweak China and other oppressive regimes. Secretary Clinton seemed to be calling upon U.S. corporations to play a role traditionally reserved for governments -- confronting restrictive regimes over how they police their own societies and how they steal secrets from other governments.

3 responses: Ron Marks, Michael F. Scheuer, James Lewis

Four years after Katrina became the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history, and the government's response the standard for ineptitude, the earthquake in Haiti has once again focused the American public and the world on the U.S. government's ability to respond to a major and unexpected catastrophe. The question looming over the U.S.-led rescue and relief effort is whether the hard lessons of Katrina and other recent disasters have been learned and adequately incorporated into the response of the Obama administration to what may prove the worst disaster in the Western Hemisphere in living memory.

Though the relief operation is still in its infancy, I would like our expert bloggers to share their insights and thoughts about the response thus far. Given Haiti's extreme poverty, its lack of adequate infrastructure, and the severity of the earthquake, how does this crisis rate on the spectrum of disasters in terms of the challenges it presents? Given the imperative to reach victims within the "golden" 72 hours after such a catastrophic event, has the Obama administration shown the requisite urgency and responded fast enough? By naming USAID administrator Rajiv Shah to oversee the response, and assigning Southern Command deputy Gen. P.K. Keen to head a joint task force and coordinate the response, has the Obama administration heeded the need for a single point person and clear chain of command that seemed lacking in the early days of the Katrina response?

Do you sense that the lack of adequate communications to coordinate relief efforts during Katrina has been addressed in this instance? Has the administration done a good or poor job in coordinating with local (Haitian) and international authorities in managing the crisis? Have enough of the right supplies, equipment and personnel been sent based on a coherent prioritization? What, if any, additional capabilities does the United States need in order to better respond to such disasters, natural as well as manmade? Finally, Obama told Congress in recent days that "this is a time when the world looks to us." What do you believe the world's ultimate judgment will be on Obama's leadership and America's response in this crisis?

12 responses: Brian Michael Jenkins, Michael Vlahos, Paul Sullivan, Ron Marks, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Christopher Preble, Michael F. Scheuer, Michael Brenner, Wayne White, Michael Brown, Eric Farnsworth, James Jay Carafano

Al Qaeda has now made it official: It says the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan on Dec. 30 acted in retaliation for the killings of Qaeda leaders in Pakistan by U.S. Predator drones, and in particular for the drone-inflicted death of Pakistan Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. President Obama has stepped up the use of these loitering, pilotless surveillance and bomber aircraft in the past year, seemingly to great effect. National Journal this week publishes two feature stories ("'Wanted: Dead'") and ("Are Drone Strikes Murder?") examining, respectively, the military aspects of the drones and the legal questions surrounding their use. Many international law experts say the drone strikes amount to illegal extrajudicial killings.

But what do you, the experts, think about these strikes?

Predators are one of our primary counter-terrorism tools -- CIA Director Leon Panetta said last May, "Very frankly, it's the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the Al Qaeda leadership." Should we continue to use them not only in Pakistan, but in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere as often as we deem fit? Is the public backlash against these remote killers in these countries worth considering, or just a necessary side effect of a valuable tool? Does the Israeli experience with drones to counteract violent opposition on its borders offer any useful lessons? And, are Predator strikes really disrupting Al Qaeda that much when, in the space of four months, the group has been able to launch three significant attacks -- the attempted Christmas bomber, the CIA suicide bomber, and the attempted assassination last August of the Saudi counter-terrorism chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef?

8 responses: Paul Sullivan, Michael F. Scheuer, Ron Marks, Joseph J. Collins, Michael Brenner, Wayne White, Steven Metz, Daniel Gouré

Even before the revelation that would-be Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab picked up training and materials from Al Qaeda in Yemen, the United States had been helping the Yemeni government track and kill terrorists, as well as fighters in its civil wars. Indeed, America has been engaged there for years -- lending assistance with drone aircraft, money and intelligence sharing.

Now that the Obama administration plans to double its monetary assistance to Yemen, the question arises: Will the U.S. military "go to war" there, too? Perhaps not with the full force of an invasion -- but is President Obama likely to significantly escalate U.S. operations in this unstable country on the Arabian peninsula, perhaps even sending troops or advisers to Yemen to deal with Al Qaeda, which, clearly, previous efforts have been unable to squash? Or does our low-key intervention so far offer a new, more politically palatable model for counterterrorism?

13 responses: Dov S. Zakheim, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Larry Korb, Christopher Preble, Paul Sullivan, Michael Brenner, James Jay Carafano, Steven Metz, Joseph J. Collins, Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., Ron Marks, Steven Metz