A step in the right direction: New Executive Order targets the property of foreign cyberattackers

[Commentary] On April 1, 2015, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order entitled “Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities.” It marks a step forward in federal efforts to combat foreign cyberattacks -- like the one against Sony Pictures -- that target the rights and property of the United States, US businesses or US citizens. Particularly after the Sony cyberattack, it seems clear that purely defensive cybersecurity strategies cannot succeed. We can and must adjust to that reality. The stakes involved are simply too economically and socially important to ignore. Those stakes include something as fundamental as rule of law -- the practical ability of US businesses and citizens to know what their legal rights are, and to demand that they be respected, at least within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Of course, rule of law cuts both ways: it binds both governments and private parties. That is also why the blocking order should remind both Congress and the Administration that it is essential for the US to take the next step by grappling with -- and finally resolving -- the many challenges involved in updating our outdated electronic privacy laws. That would be another step towards a defensible and effective national cybersecurity strategy.

[Tom Sydnor previously served as Director of the Center for the Study of Digital Property at the Progress & Freedom Foundation]