One of the striking new frontiers and challenges of the 21st Century is cyberspace. As a 20th Century power, we are still trying to wrap our heads around all its implications. And an older generation of policy makers has yet to fully understand the depth of the challenge we face. While I am no kid, I know enough that cyberspace is the new dimension of thought, business and political interaction. And Secretary of State Clinton is right to tackle the political issue of "human rights" on the internet. Cyber space or not this a fundamental right laid out in the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights -- the freedom of speech and expression.

As for the political implications of the internet, do not think for a moment that Al Queda and its affiliates would be what they are today without the internet. In fact, I has always thought that there is some irony in the use of 21st century technology to restore a repressive 16th century ideal. But, such are the weapons that non-nation states have in their arsenal. And nation states like Russia, North Korea and China are willing to exploit them as well through attack and repression.

The U.S. approach to cyberspace was relatively laisse faire for years. Part of it, of course, was industry demand that we stay out of it. Part of it, was simple ignorance by the govenment of it and its pervasiveness -- much of which has taken place in the last five years. While light years in cyber time, that is relatively quick by government time.

Our reaction, so far, has been relatively old nation-state. We decided to deal with a problem by setting up a complex bureaucracy that is primarily military oriented. (Though don't get me wrong. I understand the cyber threat connection to a net-centric military.)

I am cringing, however, as we set up Cyber Command with NSA in the lead. There needs to be someone in charge. But, I pity the Keith Alexander-- head of NSA -- who will need to coordinate CIA, DIA, DHS, and a host of other government initials who have a piece of the action in this game and are not about to cede anything willingly. And I will not even attempt to address the government interacting with the private cyber sector -- that is not going to be pretty.

That being said, we do need to now step into the wild Internet frontier and deal with it on a more deliberate basis. I know it is cliche, but we are the world's largest superpower and cannot afford to ignore any political space -- tangible or intangible. Secretary of State Clinton is absolutely correct in leading the U.S. into the effort of maintaining "human rights" on the net. Whether it be China or Iran, people of the world have right to free speech and expression in cyber space. And America must lead the way.

If the Chinese are hacking into areas that compromise aspects of U.S. security, we should build better defenses and launch hacking attacks that penetrate and/or destroy computer systems important to the Chinese. An eye for an eye is appropriate, and perhaps this will lead to a sort of tense peace on this issue just as mutually assured destruction did vis. U.S.-USSR relations.

As to Mrs. Clinton's five universal Internet freedoms, this is precisely the kind of sophmoric interventionism that has become typical of Obama's Ivy League wiz kids. How the Chinese regime governs/restricts/prohbits access to the Internet is precisely none of America's business. They are communists afterall and have something of a track record in regard to censorship. Mrs. Clinton's unquenchable thrist to be the I-am-Woman, Iron School Marm to the world is unlikely to have any but a negative impact on the Chinese Bolsheviks who -- if Mrs. Clinton has not noticed -- are lending the U.S. federal government enough money to keep it afloat.

Our governing elite's congenital ideological interventionism is an amazing thing to behold. Attack the Chinese for something that's none of our business and risk hurting a U.S. economy that already has too many ordinary Americans ready to sell apples and pencils on the street corner ala the 1930s. Alas, we appear miles away from any Democrat or Republican who thinks about caring for America first.

Censorship is half the story. Economic espionage is the other half. The question is do we want an internet (or cyberspace) where either one is okay? That's what we have now. It's a rhetorical question , of course, because a majority of American oppose censorship and espionage.

Should we encourage ways around the great firewall? It’s not a bad idea, but this will happen spontaneously and government doesn’t need to do very much. Should we chastise US companies for going along with censorship? We’d expect a Chinese company to abide by American law if it operated here, so it is hard to ask American companies not to abide by Chinese law if they operate there. It’s really a state-to-state issue, and the U.S. needs to think of ways to lend companies a little cover to resist demand from other nations for sensitive data or cooperation in censorship. issue

Overall, we haven’t been very aggressive in pursuing nations that do bad things in cyberspace, or in setting up the rules and norms that define what bad things are. The latter task is not as hard as it sounds. The Google case involves both crime and non tariff barriers to trade, and there are avenues for pursing this. Explicitly extended the rule of law into the wild west of the internet would be useful (and this means more than the occasional call for other nations to endorse ht council of Europe Treaty).

The political issues are harder. We’ve been reluctant to confront bad actors in cyberspace. Some of this is the desire of companies to avoid any ruckus – some will now tell you they are global companies rather than American and thus can’t get into fights with their other customers over censorship. Some of it is a desire not to affect other interests, like getting the Chinese or the Russians to cooperate on Iran (hold your laughter, please). In both cases, it’s a miscalculation that comes from underestimating the damage of cyber espionage and compromising human rights.

Pushing back against bad behavior and leading the charge to create norms for cyberspace (as we and our allies created norms for nonproliferation) is probably the best approach. It gets companies out of the fight and puts other nations on notice that we won’t sit passively (as we have done for the last 15 years). I liked the SecState’s speech – a good start – but now we have to follow up with action.