YR NEW FAVORITE ASYMMETRICAL WAR

ITEM: The Pentagon decides that a hacker attack on critical US computer systems counts as an act of war, and therefore justifies use of military force as a response.

In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. "If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.

The idea of using military force to respond to a state-sponsored hacker attack has been around a long time, of course. One chief problem with it is that you have to make sure you know exactly who is conducting the attack – is it China, or is it just certain people in China? Or is it 4chan or LulzSec pretending to be China? And either way, how does one go about launching missile strikes on a country with nukes?

Anyway, it amounts to a weird state of affairs in the general state of warfare when a hacker attack is classified as an act of war.

Sure, computer networks count as critical infrastructure, and a state-sponsored hacker attack on it might be strategically no different from shooting ICBMs at every major data center exchange in the continental US.

Still, I’m not a big fan of disproportionate violence. Yes, I know, that makes me quaint in the 21st Century, where the US has asserted and established its moral right to bomb the hell out of any country who can’t bomb us back because we’d rather be feared than liked.

On the other hand, look where that’s got us – a huge military bill, for a start. Surely it’d be cheaper to just respond with our own cyber attack. Shut down all THEIR power plants and see how they like it.

Or everyone could get World Of Warcraft accounts and we can settle it there.

Ha ha. No. Obviously it’s better to kill people for real. It’s not proper war unless people actually die horribly. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Game on,

This is dF

THE SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS YR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO BE DETAINED WITHOUT PROBABLE CAUSE

ITEM: The Supreme Court rules in Ashcroft v. Al-Kidd that former Attorney General John Ashcroft cannot be held responsible for the wrongful arrest and detention of US citizen Abdullah al-Kidd under the material witness law.

That’s the same material witness law that allows law enforcement to detain a witness whose testimony prosecutors believe is material at a criminal trial if it believes that witness won't testify voluntarily – and which Ashcroft retooled to allow the government to arrest and detain individuals for whom they lacked probable cause to charge with a crime, which subsequently allowed the DOJ to detain Muslims under the pretext of being “material witnesses”, when the real objective (allegedly) was to detain Muslims who may or may not know anyone in al Qaeda.

“Preventative detention”, it’s called. And it resulted in Al-Kidd being arrested, detained under abusive conditions, and then having his movements and freedoms severely restricted for 16 months despite no evidence that he had done anything wrong. None of which matters, since Al-Kidd’s legal argument was that Ashscroft intentionally misused the law. The Supremes ruled 8-0 that legally it didn’t matter what Ashcroft’s intentions were.

Anyway, that’s not Ashcroft’s problem anymore. Which means it’s not really anyone’s problem now – except people like Al-Kidd, but he’s Muslim, and yr not, so why worry? Only people you don’t know get their rights violated, and nobody gets to be held responsible.

Everyone wins.

Especially Ashcroft, who has just landed a new job as an “independent director” of private military firm Xe Services (formerly known as Blackwater), where he will head Xe’s new “subcommittee on governance,” which is designed to “maximize governance, compliance and accountability” and “promote the highest degrees of ethics and professionalism within the private-security industry.”

And you thought Republicans had no sense of humor.

No one’s to blame,

This is dF

AND NOW, THE TOP FIVE HAPPIEST NATIONS ON EARTH

1. China

2. North Korea.

3. Cuba

4. Venezuela

5. Iran

The least happiest nation on Earth? The USA (ranked at #203).

Source: The North Korean central news bureau, which has just released a study proving it.

And you know it wasn’t rigged – otherwise North Korea would have placed first.

Amusingly, even the Chinese are saying, “That’s not science.”

I don't think yr happy enough,

This is dF