NPR on 9/23/10 posted Extending The Law Of War To Cyberspace, a written article and a pod cast of a 7 and 1/2 minute radio report including interview clips with Michael Hayden and other experts. The article raises all the right issues, although it says little about solving them.
It is no surprise, then, that many legal experts, diplomats and military commanders around the world are now debating how to extend the law of war to cyberspace. The emergence of electronic and cyberwar-fighting capabilities is the most important military development in decades, but it is not yet clear how existing treaties and conventions might apply in this new domain of conflict.
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Under the U.N. Charter, states have the right to go to war if they come under an "armed attack" from another state. But there is no consensus yet on what that right means in the event of an attack on a country's computer networks.
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"We don't know when or if a cyberattack rises to the level of an 'armed attack,' " says Daniel Ryan, who teaches cyber law and the law of war at the U.S. military's National Defense University.
The article the legal problems of proportionality and attribution.
Hat tip to Mark R. Butscha Jr.
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