Update: A better question about cyber attacks for John McGuire
Ugh. I spoke too soon.
Yesterday, I wrote about how John McGuire had asked decent questions at a hearing on China’s cyber attacks against the U.S. Today the New York Times has a story that raises a much, much better question.
From the top of David E. Sanger and Nick Corasaniti’s article, “Trump Weakens U.S. Cyberdefenses at a Moment of Rising Danger”:
When President Trump abruptly fired the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command on Thursday, it was the latest in a series of moves that have torn away at the country’s cyberdefenses just as they are confronting the most sophisticated and sustained attacks in the nation’s history.
The commander, General Timothy D. Haugh, had sat atop the enormous infrastructure of American cyberdefenses until his removal, apparently under pressure from the far-right Trump loyalist Laura Loomer. He had been among the American officials most deeply involved in pushing back on Russia, dating to his work countering Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.
His dismissal came after weeks in which the Trump administration swept away nearly all of the government’s election-related cyberdefenses beyond the secure N.S.A. command centers at Fort Meade, Md. At the same time, the administration has shrunk much of the nation’s complex early-warning system for cyberattacks, a web through which tech firms work with the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies to protect the power grid, pipelines and telecommunications networks.
Cybersecurity experts, election officials and lawmakers — mostly Democrats but a few Republicans — have begun to raise alarms that the United States is knocking down a system that, while still full of holes, has taken a decade to build. It has pushed out some of its most experienced cyberdefenders and fired younger talent brought in to design defenses against a wave of ransomware, Chinese intrusions and vulnerabilities created by artificial intelligence.
Clearly, John McGuire (who sits on the cybersecurity subcommittee) should be asking a lot of questions about this. This week’s hearing on Salt Typhoon was a missed opportunity. And many of these moves came long before my post yesterday. So I screwed the pooch on that one. There’s a reason I’m a guy in his basement and not an elected official responsible for keeping America’s computer systems safe. What’s McGuire’s excuse?
Everything, yes, everything, Trump is doing makes perfect sense, once it's recognized as being part of Putin's plan to weaken America, and to demonstrate to the the world that governments based on democratic principles and ideals simply don't work. As Professor Tim Snyder pointed out, there is absolutely nothing Putin can do to make Russia stronger, but by weakening other governments he comes out way ahead in the balance of power. Trump is serving Putin's agenda well, serving ably as Putin's useful fool.