Tim Starks has an excellent look in the latest CQ Weekly at the policy challenges surrounding the military's increasing use of cyberattacks for espionage and other purposes. Congress has pressed the Obama administration to clarify its policies regarding cyberwarfare for some time, but the recent revelation that the United States and Israel were behind the Stuxnet virus has added urgency to those calls. It remains unclear what constitutes a cyberattack, when lawmakers should be briefed on digital operations, and how the military would respond to a digital attack on American critical infrastructure. The Pentagon has previously indicated it would reserve all options in such an event, including a possible physical response.

Currently, members of the two Intelligence panels are generally kept abreast of most cyber operations, while members of the Armed Services Committees are generally slower to receive such information, if at all. Drawing a line between military and intelligence cyber operations is difficult, particularly since the U.S. Cyber Command, the military agency in charge of cyberspace, is co-located with the secretive National Security Agency. Gen. Keith B. Alexander heads both, which is further evidence of the Pentagon's blurred lines between defensive and offensive cyber capabilities. Such uncertainty is reflective of today's foreign policy, where a congressional declaration of war is no longer needed to invade other nations or attack individuals on foreign soil.

Given the administration's willing use of cyberweapons and drone strikes against foreign enemies, we don't expect them to curtail their use of these attacks any time soon. The last two occupants of the White House have both assumed the authority to launch digital strikes against perceived threats without Congressional approval. Once the executive branch assumes such powers, they rarely turn around and relinquish them. The Obama administration is unlikely to publicly say so, but it looks like Congress will be relegated to passive observers on the cyberwar front. Lawmakers may look to include some language in the fiscal 2013 authorization law to clarify when they should be notified, but such information would still likely be kept well out of public view.

CRS Report on Cybersecurity: The latest Congressional Research Service report on cybersecurity is available here. (PDF) Immigration Announcement Could Hurt Skilled Workers: CQ's David Harrison reports President Obama made headlines on Friday by announcing that undocumented young immigrants that have enrolled in high school or joined the military would be eligible for work permits and spared from deportation. The new policy, effective immediately, is modeled on the DREAM Act, a bill (HR 1842, S 952) backed by Democrats. While the move will likely pay political dividends for the White House, especially with regard to Hispanic Americans, the impact on the tech community is less obvious. Importing foreign engineers and scientists has been a top policy priority for tech companies, which complain that the United States simply doesn't produce enough advanced students in those fields to fill the available openings.

The immediate impact of the policy on technology won't be significant, since only a fraction of the 800,000 or so young people that would be affected are likely to pursue employment in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. But the re-shaping of the broader immigration debate could spell doom for tech companies' push to import more skilled foreign workers. Until recently, setting aside more visas for foreign students emerging from U.S. graduate programs in STEM fields was an area of rare bipartisan agreement on immigration policy. But now Republicans have begun positioning themselves squarely against the president on immigration, making the prospect of any legislation on the issue much more difficult. The picture looks likely even worse for attempts to import foreign skilled workers that aren't currently in the United States, another measure favored by Silicon Valley. White House support for either measure could change the picture, but more action appears unlikely before the fall election.

GSA Touts Savings Efforts: CQ Weekly's Shawn Zeller reports the General Services Administration is emerging from scandal involving lavish spending on a Las Vegas training conference, by pushing new ways to save the government money. One way: eliminate a list of contractors that provide outdated products, or ones used by relatively few federal agencies. The 8,000 contracts don't generate significant sales, but keeping each up to date costs $3,000. GSA is hoping to save $24 million by eliminating the rarely-used product lines. One of the core complaints about GSA and federal contracting in general is the long period it takes to award contracts, due to the complexity of federal acquisition regulations and the shortage of qualified contracting personnel. Companies that do business with the government are also required to offer agencies their lowest commercial price, which some experts say is not always justified. On the Move: FCC chairman Julius Genachowski announced Friday that Wireline Bureau Chief Sharon Gillett will leave her position at the end of the month to return to the Boston area. Julie Veach, currently deputy general counsel in the FCC's Office of General Counsel, will take over as Wireline bureau chief on June 30. A former software engineer, Gillett was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology working on broadband issues from 1995-2006.