The President of the United States, Barack Obama, has recently been given tremendous powers to conduct cyber-warfare against percieved cyber-threats in a secret program involving the Pentagon and the National Security Administration, the CIA and the FBI. My research proposal will deal with this new paradigm in terms of neo-liberalism, liberty, and freedom of speech as interregated by the authors used in the class. A large cohort of government hackers will be mining the internet for data concerning international F/OSS hackers. The loose doctrine of pre-emptive strikes that is used to justify the secret drone strikes and assassinations taking place in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Iran, (anywhere the President deems a threat to United States security interests) will be employed to rationalize cyber-warfare of possibly nuclear proportions against any percieved enemy. I am interested in the ethical ramifications of such warfare.
Questions guiding this research will include Why this is happening? Just What is happening? Who does this affect? and Where will this lead the United States in the future? How does this effect our ethical identification as "Americans"? Is this a moral way to conduct ourselves as a nation? Methodology will include a literature review, internet mining, and possibly interview with other researchers. I argue that cyber-warfare as pre-emptive strike should be overseen by a watchdog branch of the government in order to provide proper ethical review before involving the United States in cyber-war, its repercussions, and possible side effects on our economy, our liberty, and our freedoms. Boyle, Coombe and Coleman, with Castells will guide me in exploring this subject.