Hillicon Valley — NATO vague on cyberattacks’ thresholds

NATO is still unclear, at least publicly, on when is the appropriate time to invoke Article 5 as a response to a major cyberattack. The article states that an act of war against a NATO member will prompt a response from the full alliance. 

Meanwhile, tech groups are asking the Supreme Court to review a case that could shape how companies moderate online content.  

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. 

NATO’s response to cyberattacks  

Cyberattacks are increasingly a key part of modern warfare, but NATO’s treaty that says an attack on one nation represents an attack on all has not covered these aggressive actions. 

Several NATO members have been hit with recent cyberattacks, but there has been no signal from NATO on when such attacks might ever trigger Article 5, which states that an act of war against a NATO member will prompt a response from the full alliance. 

• “Article 5 was written in the days when things were much clearer,” said James Lewis, a senior vice president and director with the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 
  
• “We don’t have that clarity with cyberattacks,” he added. 

Experts have been wondering why government officials have yet to clearly define what constitutes a major cyberattack and what the thresholds are for responding against one. 

Read more here. 

Tech groups petition Supreme Court on Florida law 

Tech industry groups asked the Supreme Court to hear a case on a Florida law that could help shape the future of how companies are allowed to moderate content online.  

The Computer and Communications Association (CCIA) and NetChoice petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday to review a case about Florida’s law, which would limit companies from being able to remove content and users that violate their policies.  

The tech industry groups, which include companies like Meta, Twitter and Google among their members, asked the highest court to hear the case on whether Florida’s law complies with the First Amendment. 

The groups argue the law “openly abridges the targeted companies’ First Amendment right to exercise editorial judgment over what content to disseminate on their websites via requirements that are speaker-based, content-based, and viewpoint-discriminatory,” according to the petition. 

Florida’s law seeks to prohibit tech companies from banning users or moderating content based on political views, building on the mounting accusations from Republicans that tech platforms are censoring content based on anti-conservative biases. 

Read more here.  

META FACES CALL TO GET ‘FIT AND FOCUSED’ 

Meta investor Altimeter Capital called on the company to cut its staff and to limit its investments on expanding into the virtual reality metaverse in an open letter published Monday. 

The letter from Altimeter Chairman and CEO Brad Gerstner was published two days before Meta is scheduled to release its earnings for the third quarter, the latest announcement since Meta reported its first ever revenue drop in July. 

Gerstner cites Meta’s declining stock, down 55 percent in the last 18 months, and falling price per earnings ratio, as reasons Meta needs to make changes to “get its Mojo back.” 

To do so, Gerstner suggests Meta cut stuff by at least 20 percent, reduce its annual capital expenditure by at least $5 billion, and limit investments in the metaverse to no more than $5 billion per year. 

Read more here.  

DOJ INDICTS CHINESE NATIONALS ON ESPIONAGE 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced charges against 10 alleged Chinese government spies and three other Chinese nationals in three separate cases, including a matter in which two intelligence officers sought to recruit a U.S. double agent in order to damage prosecution of tech company Huawei. 

The sprawling activity described by DOJ includes several different plots, and is part of a pressure campaign on U.S.-based Chinese citizens who have been critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

The announcement, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland, comes as the U.S. continues its 2019 case against Huawei, which was expanded in 2020 to include racketeering and intellectual property theft charges in addition to bank fraud. 

“The defendants believed that they had recruited the U.S. employee as an asset, but in fact, the individual they recruited was actually a double agent, working on behalf of the FBI,” Garland said on Monday. 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: We cannot let China use our ‘tech disconnect’ to advance its ‘rule by law’ 

Notable links from around the web: 

Why Am I Seeing That Political Ad? Check Your ‘Trump Resistance’ Score. (The New York Times / Natasha Singer) 

Biden admin set to warn about threats to nation’s election infrastructure (Politico / Erin Banco and Eric Geller) 

NASA proved it can deflect an asteroid. But spotting them is tricky. (The Washington Post / Christian Davenport)  

📚 Lighter click: Don’t judge a jerky by its cover

One more thing: NASA to investigate UFOs 

NASA on Monday launched a new independent study team to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) and pave a path forward for future probes into mysterious sightings and aircraft in the sky. 

The 16-member team will investigate UAPs, now the formal name for what were previously called UFOs, over the course of nine months as it seeks to lay the groundwork for future studies. 

The team will focus on how data collected by civilians, governments and commercial businesses can be analyzed to shed light on UAPs — and then construct a road map for future NASA analyses. 

Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said the focus on data is important because the raw information is the “language of scientists and makes the unexplainable, explainable.” 

Read more here.  

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.