The Air Force must subject cyber capabilities to legal review for compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict and other international and domestic laws, says an order from the secretary of the Air Force, signed by the judge advocate general, Richard Harding.

The instruction, 51-402 (.pdf)--dated July 27 and first noted by Secrecy News--says the Air Force judge advocate general must ensure that all cyber capabilities "being developed, bought, built, modified or otherwise acquired by the Air Force" must undergo legal review--except for cyber capabilities within a Special Access Program, which must undergo review by the Air Force general counsel.

Special Access Programs are efforts which involve sensitive capabilities, information, technologies and operations.

A "cyber capability" within the context of the instruction means any device or software "intended to disrupt, deny, degrade, negate, impair or destroy adversarial computer systems, data, activities or capabilities."

The term does not include a capability "solely intended to provide access to an adversarial computer system for data exploitation," the instruction states.

Air Force officials must submit information on request to service legal officials a description of the cyber capability, what its intended use is, and what its reasonably-anticipated effects would be.

Some cyber experts have said the effects of cyber weapons are hard to predict due to the ad hoc interconnected nature of the Internet.

For more:
- download the Air Force order, AFI 51-402 from an Air Force website (.pdf)
- read a blog post by Secrecy News on the order

Related Articles:
Lynn: Norms for offensive cyber action are not different from kinetic 
Lewis: Cyber attacks are rare 
White House: U.S.-Russia operational relationship for cyberspace expected by year end