August 25, 2010 7:30AM # We Fail More—So Put Us in Charge By [Jim Harper](https://www.cato.org/people/jim-harper) --- SHARE The *Washington Post* [reports today](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR2010082406154.html) on an article coming out in *Foreign Affairs* in which Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III reveals a successful 2008 intrusion into military computer systems. Malicious code placed on a thumb drive by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. military’s Central Command and propagated itself across a number of domains. The *Post* article says that Lynn “puts the Homeland Security Department on notice that although it has the ‘lead’ in protecting the dot​.gov and dot​.com domains, the Pentagon — which includes the ultra-secret National Security Agency — should support efforts to protect critical industry networks.” The failure of the military to protect its own systems creates an argument for it to have preeminence in protecting private computer infrastructure? Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security will reveal how badly it has been hacked in order to regain the upper hand in the battle to protect us. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Technology and Privacy](https://www.cato.org/technology-privacy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).