HW #3 Cyberterrorism

The name of the article that I chose to summarize was called FBI To Get More Cyber Crime Agents: But is the bureau focusing too heavily on cyber-terrorism, as opposed to fighting cybercrime? The article was written by Mathew J. Schwartz who is an author for the free IPAD application InformationWeek. It was published on December 20^th, 2011.

In this article, the author Schwartz talks about how the FBI is receiving more cyber special agents. This is happening due to the increase funding for a number of type of investigations such as computer intrusions and cyber investigations. A new bill called the Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill for 2012 have given the FBI the appropriate funding to do such things. According to this bill, the FBI is in a unique position to counter cyber threats, as it is the only agency with the statutory authority, expertise, and ability to combine counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal resources to neutralize, mitigate, and disrupt illegal computer-supported operations domestically. An increase in the cyber-investigation budget will allow the FBI to fund 42 new positions in their unit.

The FBI houses about 30,000 employees and in each of their 56 field offices across the country they now hold cyber squads in those offices. The FBI also holds about 1,000 agents that are specially trained cyber agents analysts, and digital forensic examiners.

What do I think about this? I think that it is a great idea by the FBI to use our taxpayer money to help out the cyber-terrorism unit. If you think about it nowadays everyone has a computer and uses it to be in contact with someone about something. Terrorists can make a Facebook group and start planning attacks on places. They could also be in contact with other terrorist on Twitter and Facebook as well. They also post ideas to forums as well. What the Cyber-terrorism unit will do is that they will monitor those questionable groups and twitter accounts to see if any outside terrorism groups are planning attacks on the USA or another country. However I do think that monitoring people’s computers is wrong but that is a different discussion for another day. 

 Matthew Cerullo