Somehow, deep in the fine print almost no one in Washington ever reads, are a series of provisions snuck in to the NDAA by Senator Warren and Obama Administration holdovers at the Defense Department that will actually make America less safe and grow government bureaucracy.
The first Warren provision forces all new DOD technology to be built with so-called “open source” software. It was open source software that Equifax was using when hackers stole the identities of 143 million Americans. “Open source” means that the code at the very center of how the technology is run is open to be viewed by anyone. In fact, Sen. Warren’s provision in the NDAA specifically calls for any such software put in place at the Dept. of Defense to be made “available to anyone for any purpose” by the Secretary of Defense ‘for the public good.’ But the only good that will come out of it is for Russia, North Korea and Iran and other countries that want to more easily hack American military systems.
The new language also separately requires all technology to be built by only in-house government contractors. It’s impossible to understand why the government would be building new technology itself. Since when is the U.S. government more sophisticated than private industry when it comes to technology and software? In fact, just a few months back a former Defense Department CIO in a presentation to Congress reported that the Pentagon was DECADES behind in technology. So the very-behind department is now going to develop its own new technology? That doesn’t sound right.
The NDAA Is Fatally Flawed And Threatens National Security
The first Warren provision forces all new DOD technology to be built with so-called “open source” software. It was open source software that Equifax was using when hackers stole the identities of 143 million Americans. “Open source” means that the code at the very center of how the technology is run is open to be viewed by anyone. In fact, Sen. Warren’s provision in the NDAA specifically calls for any such software put in place at the Dept. of Defense to be made “available to anyone for any purpose” by the Secretary of Defense ‘for the public good.’ But the only good that will come out of it is for Russia, North Korea and Iran and other countries that want to more easily hack American military systems.
The new language also separately requires all technology to be built by only in-house government contractors. It’s impossible to understand why the government would be building new technology itself. Since when is the U.S. government more sophisticated than private industry when it comes to technology and software? In fact, just a few months back a former Defense Department CIO in a presentation to Congress reported that the Pentagon was DECADES behind in technology. So the very-behind department is now going to develop its own new technology? That doesn’t sound right.
The NDAA Is Fatally Flawed And Threatens National Security