Tim Roemer, a former Democratic representative from Indiana, who served on the Sept. 11 commission, is president of the Center for National Policy. In an article in today's Washington Post on how to fix intelligence oversight, he makes the point that Congress has little idea of what's actually going on because:

The intelligence-authorizing committees in the House and Senate -- the ones we look to when something goes wrong -- have, ironically, the least say over how intelligence dollars are spent. Instead, the defense appropriations subcommittees have final say over intelligence funding levels.
Authorizers are often circumvented or ignored by the intelligence community, which seeks to deal directly with appropriators. The defense appropriations subcommittees, understaffed and preoccupied with a $600 billion defense budget, simply don't have the time or resources to devote sufficient attention to intelligence funding -- one of the most important spending priorities for our country's national security.

One of the developments that seems to have had little notice is the new Air Force Cyberspace Command (AFCYBER):

USAF Builds A Cyber War Army

December 10, 2007: The U.S. Air Force is in the process of training 40,000 Cyber Warriors. In addition, all air force recruits will now receive some basic Cyber War training as part of boot camp. Many of the new training courses, are existing ones that have been renamed, or slightly modified. The air force has been deeply involved with electronic warfare for over sixty years, and Internet based operations for over a decade. The new training courses will take from six to 15 months, and it will take over seven years to get the full complement of people trained, and experienced enough, to do what needs to be done.

At least, during all the discussion of N.S.A. spying, what these folk are up to never came up.

The air force already has several Internet monitoring and Cyber War operations, which contain a lot of high priced civilian contractors (many of them former air force personnel who went looking for more money and opportunities in the civilian world.) The air force found that the rapidly expanding adoption of the Internet not only caused a lot of their Internet specialists to go over to the commercial side, but forced the air force to pay much more money to get some of these hot shots back.

Thousands of existing air force electronic warfare specialists will be assigned, or offered, jobs in AFCYBER. This will include units operating U2 strategic reconnaissance aircraft, EC-135 electronic-eavesdropping aircraft, EC-130E Commando Solo radio/TV broadcasting aircraft, and the EC-130H Compass Call radio-jamming aircraft. AFCYBER will have over 20,000 personnel, and the air force is recruiting officers and airmen from all over the air force for careers in Cyber War jobs. Not all of the people trained as Cyber Warriors will be in the 8th Air Force. Many will be assigned throughout the air force, to take care of Cyber War needs of their units.

Which is perhaps why Roemer is now speaking up. Others will have to decide whether it's a sensible recommendation.

The Sept. 11 commission recommended that Congress empower the intelligence committees by giving them the power of the purse in the form of appropriations. By combining authorizing and appropriating powers into a single committee, Congress would align responsibility with power. This would be a unique arrangement, as no other committee in Congress enjoys such power over the agencies it oversees. The nature of intelligence and the many hindrances of its oversight committees, however, merit a unique response.

Meanwhile,

China rejects U.S. report calling it key cyber warfare instigator

Nov 29, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - The Chinese government is disputing a report labelling it the world's most aggressive offender in probing for holes in other countries' Internet security and encouraging a looming global cyber showdown.

The report, issued Thursday by security software vendor McAfee Inc., said government-affiliated hackers in China are at the forefront of a brewing "cyber Cold War" still in its infancy.

Within two decades, McAfee said, the scuffle could erupt into a worldwide conflict involving hundreds of countries attacking one another's online networks with sophisticated software.

McAfee said about 120 countries are developing cyber attack strategies and most are merely testing them to determine the risks involved in certain tactics - though devastating international attacks could come one day.

It's not clear how much one should credit these reports, since some seem to be motivated by a desire to sell new services.

How to Wage Cyber War By Noah Shachtman EmailDecember 12, 2007 | 5:29:34

Over the few years, the Defense Department has morphed the nuclear weaponeers of U.S. Strategic Command into network warriors, and turned the 8th Air Force into a new "Cyberspace Command." Not to mention plowing countless billions into the National Security Agency and all kinds of digital combat cadres, scattered throughout the armed services. And from the interviews I've done, at least, the roles and expectations for each of these agencies is, um, evolving, at best.

Robb's advice, to his former Air Force colleagues now putting Cyberspace Command together:

* Real-world experience and rapid (open source) innovation. Most, if not all, of this experience and innovation in cyberwarfare is gained through criminal activity. Innovation is a product of rapid cycles of competition with software vendors and computer security companies.

* Massive self-replication. Think in term of small teams (the smarter, the better) designing software that seizes control of tens of millions of computer systems through various forms of infection.

* Deniability. Nearly all of the successful operations conducted in offensive cyberwarfare will require deniability. Post-attack forensics must not point back to a government since these wars/battles will be fought in peacetime.

"Given these requirements, Robb believes, "this new Command will likely fail (and badly)." It'll create public relations disasters -- and retreat into a largely defensive crouch. And once it does, it'll be outmaneuvered by countries willing to get in bed with online mafias. We'll see.

But the Air Force is on top of it, giving lectures at universities.

SMU speaker: Cyber warfare a clear and present danger

By SMU

Dec 4, 2007

What is cyber warfare? Here are some scenarios the U.S. Air Force uses to paint the picture:

• Right now a finance technician is moving U.S. dollars via laptop to support terrorist operations while sipping coffee in an internet cafe.

• Right now a foreign government engineer is on the Net using stolen American technology to build radar and navigational jammers to counter American air superiority.

• Right now a foreign hacker is crashing an American server that holds a Web site with data he does not like.

Lt. Col. David Fahrenkrug, Chief of the Strategic Studies Group for the U.S. Air Force’s new cyber command, will speak at SMU on the nature of cyber warfare and its potential threats to the United States.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that this Air Force extension into the domain of cyber-space is a bit of a rogue operation. Being headed up by a former Israeli Defense Forces Colonel, Dr. Lani Kass?

The responsibility for protecting the Pentagon's global information grid, composed of 12,000 networks and 5 million individual systems, rests with the Joint Task Force-Global Network Operations, an arm of the Strategic Command, or STRATCOM.
Task force personnel work behind two banks of computers in a government building in Arlington, Va., keeping a 24/7 vigil. Spokesman Timothy J. Madden said the threats cover "a large and diverse" range, and he acknowledged that the perpetrators include "nation-states," which he declined to identify.
Two years after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration developed a "National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace," which put the then-new DHS in charge of cyber-protection. The strategy has included development of the "Einstein" early warning system to spot attacks on government computers and public-private exercises known as "Cyber Storm."
The blueprint for the military is the "2006 National Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations," a classified document that includes both defensive and offensive measures, according to officials and analysts. Likely offensive tactics include disabling an enemy's command-and-control networks, destroying data or dispatching false information to weapons networks, often as part of a larger attack with air power and other traditional weaponry.
As an outgrowth of the strategy, Air Force leaders established a provisional cyber-command at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and plan to develop a permanent command at an as-yet undesignated site on Oct. 1, 2008.
Maj. Gen. William Lord, who heads the provisional command and is leading the search for a site, said the headquarters will consist of about 500 personnel charged with training and coordinating cyber-activities within the Air Force. Lord said he's been contacted by congressional delegations from at least seven states, including California and Texas, who hope to land the command and its attendant economic benefits.
As many as 40,000 Air Force personnel are assigned to cyber-tasks, and Air Force officials envision an emerging breed of warrior who fights with a computer and keyboard. But he's expected to be as formidable as the soldier with a gun; Dr. Lani Kass, special assistant to Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, told a recent seminar that Air Force cyber-warriors would be "trained killers" and "not a bunch of geeks."

Well, now, that's reassuring. DHS is actually in charge of it. Or not. I wonder if anyone's asking whether this total reliance on electronics is a good idea. Perhaps our touch-screen voting machines should serve as a caution. I keep being reminded of all the audio-visual equipment our schools bought back in the '70s that then ended up mouldering in store-rooms.
I seem to remember Donald Rumsfeld opining that the U.S. had ignored "humint" in the run-up to September 11th and implying that was going to be changed. Doesn't look like it. Arabic speakers have been fired because of their sexual interests and Lani Kass is promising "trained killers" instead of "geeks."