I am speaking up in support of Chris Krebs
We all need to
The ever great Katie Moussouris bravely writes in support of Chris Krebs, the former head of CISA who spoke up against Trump defending the integrity of the 2020 election, who is now suffering Trump's retribution. Trump has not only announced a criminal investigation into Krebs, but is also punishing his employer, SentinelOne.
I say "bravely" because this puts her and her company in danger of retribution from the Trump administration. Her revenue includes contracts with government entities. She's therefore at real personal risk here. In contrast, I'm not so brave because I'm not really at risk. I haven't had government contracts for 10 years, so I'm not nearly as exposed for speaking out.
Krebs is not a singular case. Trump is retaliating against all sorts of foes:
universities like Harvard and Columbia, suspending all payments from the government (such as for scientific research) unless they change their free speech policies
law firms (like Perkins Coie)
legacy media (CBS, ABC, AP)
new media (Facebook)
purging FBI and DoJ of lawyers and agents involved in Jan 6, his documents theft case, and others
All of us citizens have to decide whether to stand against this. The question is particularly acute for those in specific areas, like law firms standing up in defense of other law firms, FBI agents and DoJ prosecutors resigning in protest of the purge of their fellow employees, and so on.
The question for cybersecurity is whether we risk retribution to stand in defense of our own, such as Chris Krebs and likely more in the future.
Sadly, the correct answer for most is to keep your head down and stay quiet. This is especially true when you're an officer of a public company, where your duty to your shareholders is more important than personal politics. Same with officers in the military, where your duty is to follow orders, to avoid disputing the politics of your Commander in Chief. That's what "duty" means, that you aren't free in this situation.
But for the majority of us, there is no real cost. You should consider history, such as Niemöller's famous statement about Nazism, abbreviated "First they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out... and then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak out." Despots will keep going until people stand up against them. Staying quiet now risks Trump's despotism getting worse to a point where you have no choice but to resist. The more we stand together now, the less chance we'll have to stand alone later.
Some of you readers are Trumpists who believe such retribution is justified. It's not, it never has been. You might point to the legal cases against Trump as justifications for Trump's own actions against enemies. Two wrongs don't make a right. Assuming actions against Trump were politically motivated corruption, then what you are implicitly agreeing is that Trump's actions are also political corruption. The response to corruption isn't saying "they did it so we can," but to double-down on "all such corruption is wrong." Allowing such corruption is evil, and you are evil if you support it. I mean, I empathize with you, Letitia James ran on a political platform, so at least her actions were political. But at the same time, Trump is so obviously guilty of so much fraud and crime that it's unreasonable to think it's all politics.
Some of you readers are Trumpists who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, and therefore, Krebs was "lying." Maybe, but none of you have pointed to any evidence that hasn't been debunked. All Krebs is guilty of saying is this fact, that no evidence has been produced by Trump or supporters that calls into question the integrity of the 2020 election. The Republicans are now in control of all three branches of government and they still aren't producing any evidence.
The only proven "liar" here is Trump himself, not Krebs. Trump is guilty of endless lies about the election, most notably supporting Lindell's lies about "Chinese hackers" or D'Souza's lies about "mules." I've written much in both cases about how these people are lying.
Trump's EO targeting Krebs is clear and unambiguous political corruption punishing his enemies. Any good person would oppose this, at least privately. If they would not suffer obvious consequences, they should do so publicly.
I stand in support of Krebs, though it's not really that meaningful. I'm a jerk who loves to stand against things, like wokeness or Trumpism. Indeed, I oppose Krebs's work on "misinformation" because it's gone too far in the direction of suppressing opposition to wokeness. I mean, I'm quite sincere here. I studied pre-war Germany in college, and have committed to opposition to tyrants decades ago. But at the same time, I'm regularly in opposition to things.
But for the rest of you, this is a time to actually stand up against something. Ten years from now you'll get to look back and say "I stood against tyrants" or "I didn't speak out."
If you can, speak out.
Update: Krebs resigned today from SentinelOne. Alex Stamos speaks up in support of Krebs.