9 July 2003
Source:
http://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=03070901.llt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml
US Department of State
International Information Programs
Washington File
_________________________________
09 July 2003
(Meeting aims to develop OAS plan against Internet-based crimes) (650) By Eric Green Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- The United States will join fellow member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) at a July 28-29 conference in Buenos Aires to begin developing a unified hemispheric strategy for ensuring security on the Internet. The meeting's agenda will feature discussion of a resolution presented by the United States and approved by the OAS General Assembly in late June that calls for building an inter-American strategy against threats to computer information systems and networks. The resolution notes that other OAS meetings on the subject have called cyber security-related crimes an "emerging terrorist threat." In addition, the resolution says OAS member states need to "strengthen cooperation" against threats to cyber security. Heading the 11-person U.S. delegation at the Argentina meeting is Michelle Markoff, deputy director of the State Department's Office of Plans, Policy, and Analysis. The delegation will also include other State Department officials, among them a representative from the U.S. Mission to the OAS. Other U.S. officials from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice will be in Buenos Aires for the conference. One of the officials from the Justice Department attending the conference will be Leonard Bailey, a trial attorney for the department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. Bailey was elected to chair a June 23-24 OAS meeting in Washington, where experts discussed how to intensify strategies against Internet-based crimes. State Department official Lincoln Bloomfield said in a January 23 speech that the United States regards as a high priority the ensuring of cyber security, which he defined as protecting the safety of network information systems. Speaking in San Salvador to the OAS Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE), Bloomfield said the United States is seriously concerned that the "full promise" of the Internet technology revolution may never be realized, because its reliability is repeatedly threatened. Bloomfield, who is assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, warned that "every day brings more stories of system vulnerabilities being criminally exploited, resulting in economic losses and downtime." If these "vulnerabilities are exploited systematically by hostile individuals or groups, our national security can be threatened," he said. He added that the United States has concluded that "no matter what steps individual states might take to safeguard their own critical information infrastructures, none of us will be secure until the least secure among us has addressed the issue." The United States believes that it is particularly important for OAS member states -- individually and as a group -- "to demonstrate early, tangible, cooperative progress" in the area of cyber security "for our own collective good in this hemisphere, and as a model for other regions," Bloomfield said. At the June OAS meeting in Washington, that organization's Secretary General Cesar Gaviria said that given the international scope of the problem, "mutual judicial cooperation and assistance is vital to prevent, pursue, and punish" Internet-based crime. Gaviria said collective action is crucial to fight "this new form of crime," which he cited as one of the greatest challenges to international judicial cooperation. Internet-based crime, he said, "poses a severe threat" to all states in the hemisphere where the Internet is in wide use. The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, coupled with the development of transnational organized crime, "have made it clear that we must speed up efforts to strengthen and consolidate international cooperation to effectively combat a variety of international crime mechanisms," Gaviria said. Gaviria also spoke about terrorist groups exploiting the Internet, and added that it is "unacceptable for illegal armed groups, such as those committing terrorist acts in Colombia, to be able to abuse tools like the Internet to defend their criminal deeds." (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)