Heather Roff

NSA Reform or Foreign Policy Signaling? Maritime Provisions in Title VIII of the USA Freedom Act

by Heather Roff | 3 June, 2015 | Security, US Foreign Policy, Various and Sundry

With much attention being given to the passage of the 2015 USA Freedom Act, there is some odd silence about what the bill actually contains. Pundits from every corner identify the demise of section 215 of the Patriot Act (the section that permits the government to acquire and obtain bulk telephony meta data). While the bill does in fact do this, now requiring a “specific selection term” to be utilized instead of bulk general trolling, and it hands over the holding of such data to the agents who hold it anyway (the private companies). Indeed, the new Freedom Act even “permits” amicus curiae...

It’s the Biggest National Threat and We Can’t Help You

by Heather Roff | 27 April, 2015 | Security, US Foreign Policy, Various and Sundry

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) new Cyber Strategy is a refinement of past attempts at codifying and understanding the “new terrain” of cybersecurity threats to the United States. While I actually applaud many of the acknowledgements in the new Strategy, I am still highly skeptical of the DoD’s ability to translate words to deeds. In particular, I am so because the entire Strategy is premised on the fact that the “DoD cannot defend every network and system against every kind of intrusion” because the “total network attack surface is too large to defend against all threats and too vast to...

The New Mineshaft Gap: Killer Robots and the UN

by Heather Roff | 20 April, 2015 | Human Rights, Security, US Foreign Policy

This past week I was invited to speak as an expert at the United Nations Informal Meeting of Experts under the auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The CCW’s purpose is to limit or prohibit certain conventional weapons that are excessively injurious or have indiscriminate effects. The Convention has five additional protocols banning particular weapons, such as blinding lasers and cluster bombs. Last week’s meetings was focused on whether the member states ought to consider a possible sixth additional protocol on lethal autonomous weapons or “killer robots.” My...

Stumbling Through Foreign Policy – Not History

by Heather Roff | 31 March, 2015 | Security, US Foreign Policy, Various and Sundry

Last week Joe Scarborough from Politico raised the question of why US foreign policy in the Middle East is in “disarray.” Citing all of the turmoil from the past 14 years, he posits that both Obama and Bush’s decisions for the region are driven by “blind ideology [rather] than sound reason.” Scarborough wonders what historians will say about these policies in the future, but what he fails to realize is that observers of foreign policy and strategic studies need not wait for the future to explain the decisions of the past two sitting presidents. The strategic considerations that shaped...

Not What We Bargained For: The Cyber Problem

by Heather Roff | 2 March, 2015 | Security

Last week the New America Foundation hosted its launch for an interdisciplinary cybersecurity initiative. I was fortunate enough to be asked to attend and speak, but the real benefit was that I was afforded an opportunity to listen to some really remarkable people in the cyber community discuss cybersecurity, law, and war. I listened to a few very interesting comments. For instance, Assistant Attorney General, John Carlin, claimed that “we” (i.e. the United States) have “solved the attribution problem, and the National Security Agency Director & Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) Commander,...

Drones, Decapitation, ISA and Impossible Strategies

by Heather Roff | 20 February, 2015 | Security, US Foreign Policy

Yesterday at ISA, I participated on a panel on technology and international security. One of the topics addressed was the “successfulness” of the Obama administration’s decapitation/targeted killing strategy of terrorist leaders through unmanned aerial vehicles or “drones.” The question of success, however, got me to thinking. Success was described as the military effectiveness of the strikes, but this to me seems rather wrongheaded. For if something is militarily effective, then is so in relation to a military objective. What is a military objective? Shortly, those objects that “by their...

The “Right” to Be Forgotten & Digital Leviathans

by Heather Roff | 6 February, 2015 | Featured

We hear every day that technology is changing rapidly, and that we are at risk of others violating our rights through digital means. We hear about cyber attacks that steal data, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, names, incomes, or addresses. We hear about attacks that steal intellectual property, from movies to plans for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Indeed, we face a continual onslaught from not only the cyber criminals, but from the media as well. One of the lesser-reported issues in the US, however, has been a different discussion about data and rights protection:...

SOTU: Cyber What?

by Heather Roff | 21 January, 2015 | Featured

In last night’s State of the Union Address, President Obama briefly reiterated the point that Congress has an obligation to pass some sort of legislation that would enable cybersecurity to protect “our networks”, our intellectual property and “our kids.” The proposal appears to be a reiteration that companies share more information with the government in real time about hacks they are suffering. Yet, there is something a bit odd about the President Obama’s cybersecurity call to arms: the Sony hack. The public attention given over to the Sony hack, from the embarrassing emails about movie...

Autonomous or "Semi" Autonomous Weapons? A Distinction without Difference

by Heather Roff | 12 January, 2015 | Featured

Over the New Year, I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at an event on the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) hosted by the Future of Life Institute. The purpose of the event was to think through the various aspects of the future of AI, from its economic impacts, to its technological abilities, to its legal implications. I was asked to present on autonomous weapons systems and what those systems portend for the future. The thinking was that an autonomous weapon is, after all, one run on some AI software platform, and if autonomous weapons systems continue to proceed on their...

Citizens, Beasts or Gods?

by Heather Roff | 16 December, 2014 | Featured

Keeping up with the current engagement with artificial intelligence (AI) is a full time task. Today in the New York Times, two (here and here) lead articles in the technology section were about AI, and another discussed the future of robotics and AI and the workforce. As I blogged last week, the coming economic future of robotics and AI is going to have to contend with some very weighty considerations that are making our society more and more economically, socially and racially divided. Today, however, I’d like to think about how a society might view an AI, particularly one that is...

The Duck of Minerva

Heather Roff

Heather Roff

Recent Posts

NSA Reform or Foreign Policy Signaling? Maritime Provisions in Title VIII of the USA Freedom Act

It’s the Biggest National Threat and We Can’t Help You

The New Mineshaft Gap: Killer Robots and the UN

Stumbling Through Foreign Policy – Not History

Not What We Bargained For: The Cyber Problem

Drones, Decapitation, ISA and Impossible Strategies

The “Right” to Be Forgotten & Digital Leviathans

SOTU: Cyber What?

Autonomous or "Semi" Autonomous Weapons? A Distinction without Difference

Citizens, Beasts or Gods?

Meta