Current Crimes and Criminal Issues

The most recents detections of how cyber warfare is inevitably coming was the accusations of Russia hacking the the Democratic National Committee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email’s releasing damaging evidence against them which ultimately lead to Donald Trump being named the President of The United States (Diamond, 2016). The effects of cyber warfare have leaked over in to televise series, forming shows such as CSI cyber, and the gaming world, Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare. Neglect regarding cyber security can: undermine the reputation of both the government and elected officials; force unacceptable expenditures associated with the cost of cleaning up after security breaches; cripple governments' abilities to respond to a wide variety of homeland security emergency situations or recover from natural or man-made threats; and disable elected officials' ability to govern (Lohrmann, 2010). Classified information such as overseas operators and attacks, missile locations, response plans and weaknesses, and much more cripples America’s ability to defend itself from enemies both foreign and domestic. To combat cyber terrorism is the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, or CISA. In an article titled “Why Cybersecurity Information Sharing Is A Positive Step for Online Security” it is discussed that under CISA, the Department of Homeland security will have more responsibility for domestic cybersecurity. CISA’s fundamental purpose is to better enable cybersecurity information to be shared between the private and public sectors (2016). The sharing of threat information between public and private sectors can give the the United States a head start by allowing them to share information rapidly and more often to combat enemy threats while still providing safety for privacy and civil

Although there is not a mutual agreement on how to handle terrorism there is the shared common belief that it needs to be dealt with and at the same time the citizens need to be protected. With that being said, this chapter goes along side with chapter 10 which deals with human rights and human security.

The act of terrorism, an unlawful use of violence and intimidation, is most commonly seen targeting civilians but can also include damage to property or injury to specific individuals. These malicious acts are used to fulfil political, religious or ideological aims in attempt of intimidating the government or society. Terrorisms’ impact reflects on the government and society extracting various responses, both legal and non-legal. The effectiveness of these responses, aimed at obtaining equal justice against terrorism, tend to vary while considering the concepts of preventing terrorist attacks while not infringing on human rights and the resolution of the ‘war against terrorism’. The evident lack of consistency in these responses has been reflected

The United States is under attack. To be exact, the nation’s power grid is under attack in the form of cyber warfare. On May 21st, 2013 Congressmen Edward J. Markey and Henry A Waxman published a report that provided the findings from information that they had requested from over 150 utility companies (of which 60% responded). More than a dozen utilities reported “daily, constant, or frequent attempted cyber-attacks” (Markey & Waxman) with one utility reporting that they have about 10,000 attempted attacks per month!

When looking internationally over the past decade there has been an emergence of vague definable terms that act as holistic guidelines for how international order should be constructed. One of these terms is “human rights” which acts as a set of overarching guidelines that all States should aim for and achieve. States have incorporated the ideals of human rights into their foreign policies in various ways especially in the area of war and conflict. This essay will focus on what role human rights play in the war on terror and how the human rights discourse has affected the United States of America’s (USA) foreign policy on the war on terror. This ultimately illustrates that the Western construct of human rights is an invaluable policy tool as a mandate to interfere in other states affairs and USA have continually utilised it as such a tool.

Terrorism is described as the greatest crime against humanity, which posses a great threat to enjoyment of human rights.

In 2009 the DOD created the US Cyber command, a sub-unified command led by the Director of the NSA, this allows US Cyber Command to utilize both the experience and assets of the NSA. By this point in time both the Airforce and the Navy had already created their own respective cyber commands. Those commands were made subordinate to the US Cyber Command upon its creation, and the Army was made to create their own cyber command that would be subordinate as well. While this created a definitive organization tasked with defending the US in cyberspace this did not solve the problem of a lack of requirements and regulation, there were still no standards or set expectations of capabilities. This issue left the US wide open to attack, and exploitation by enemy nations or anyone else capable in the realm of cyberspace.

Therefore, it is important to reform current organizational deficiencies which hinder current cyber-warfare efforts, adopt a new doctrine relevant to the new threat, and make cyber-warfare one of the United States Government’s top national security priorities.

The branches of the military, for a couple generations, have always been the Army, Navy, Air force, Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard; however, in an ever evolving digital world, the notion that outer space would be the next military front is being rapidly replaced by the idea that cyber space will be the next arms race. The United States has been defending attacks on their infrastructure day after day, night after night, when one hacker on one side of the world sleeps, another takes their place to attempt to compromise the US government. The motives may range from a political ‘hacktivist’ trying to prove a point, to an economic spy, trying to gain a competitive edge on its more upstart rivals, to an attempt to control the United States

Thus when the war against terror was launched the human rights movement had already disintegrated and the human rights industry was incapable and unwilling to take on the new challenges. The war against terror threw up the following challenges:

The damage of a full-fledged cyber attack would be devastating, the destruction would be unparalleled to any other tragedy that has occurred America. Since technology is responsible for providing America with vital entities and resources, an unadulterated cyber attack would nearly fail the American economy; this is what is known as critical systems failure. Weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks present imminent threats of critical systems failure. Although currently Americas’ critical infrastructures are coordinated by controlled systems, majority of these systems are indeed connected to the American cyberspace. This exposes one of America’s most vulnerable spot amidst cyber security. Another major vulnerable spot within the nations IT security would be the geographical physical location for each of Americas primary infrastructures, as well as their productivity. Due to the proximal locations, the major infrastructures could very well be infiltrated by one efficient CNA.

The term terrorism originated during the French revolution (1789-1799), referring to attempts by the new regime to consolidate its power and intimidate opponents who still supported the old monarchy. Ironically, many definitions of terrorism exclude the state as a perpetrator, however there are some scholars who argue that states are undeniable actors and participants in terrorism. Such arguments indicate that state sponsored acts of terrorism differ in some way to that of independent groups. To quantify this difference, an often-useful criterion is that the illegitimate use of force defines a terrorist act, whereas the legitimate use of force is an act in accordance with international law. However, the distinction between terrorism from other threats to global security becomes even more complex when dealing with remedies on an international level where states are often the actors, given that the legal concept of state sovereignty hinders the attempts of the international community to prosecute state sponsored attacks. Through an analysis of the existing international law framework aimed at improving global

Today the largest countries not only have a regular army but also have a well armed cyber army.

Terrorism, though lacks a unified definition around the world, it can easily be defined as any act or behavior of threat that results in violence by groups, an individual, a state, or any non-combatant people. These groups that perpetuate violence target civilians on purpose so as to influence a specific reaction or behavior from the government or a particular state organ. The 21st century is challenged with the threat of terrorism that takes place in different countries around the world. The fact that terrorist groups do not respect boundaries and frontiers, further complicate the matter because every country and people around the world becomes susceptible to violence from a terrorist attack. This paper argues that terrorism as a crime against humanity is a global challenge because it threatens world security, peace, and civil democracy.

Following the September 11th terrorist attacks in which at least 3,000 people were killed, the United States has pursued policies that violate human rights in order to wage the war on terrorism. These policies include the adoption of new security measures, the poor treatment of captured fighters at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, and the willingness of the Bush administration to overlook human rights violations in other countries in return for their support in the war on terrorism.