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NSA Ill-Suited For Domestic Cybersecurity Role
Hugh Pickens writes "Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Stephen Lee has an interesting article in the Examiner asserting that the National Security Agency is 'a secretive, hidebound culture incapable of keeping up with innovation,' with a history of disregard for privacy and civil liberties. Lee says that for most of its sixty-year history, the NSA has been geared to cracking telecom and crypto gear produced by Soviet and Chinese design bureaus, but at the end of the cold war became 'stymied by new-generation Western-engineered telephone networks and mobile technologies that were then spreading like wildfire in the developing world and former Soviet satellite countries.' When the NSA finally recognized that it needed to get better at innovation, it launched several mega-projects, tagged like 'Trailblazer' and 'Groundbreaker,' that have been spectacular failures, costing US taxpayers billions. More recently, the NY Times reported that the NSA has been breaking rules set by the Obama administration to peer even more aggressively into American citizens' phone traffic and email inboxes. Whistleblower reports portray NSA domestic eavesdropping programs as unprofessional and poorly supervised, with intercept technicians ridiculing and mishandling recordings of citizens' private 'pillow talk' conversations. Lee concludes that 'if the Federal government must play a role, then Congress and President Obama should turn to another agency without a record of creating mistrust — perhaps even a new entity. Meanwhile, NSA should focus on listening in on America's enemies, instead of being an enemy of Americans and their enterprises.'"
i l l Ill capitalization makes roman numerals!
> Congress and President Obama should turn to another agency without a record of creating mistrust
I'm afraid we have No Such Agency.
The problem with the NSA is that it is part of the intelligence structure. If you insert them as a defensive player, more often than not, they will take absolutely NO action in order to protect their spying capabilities.
At present, nobody knows exactly what the reach is of the NSA. Nobody knows what they can and can't hear. If you task them with defending assets, each probe or attack reveals new information about what the NSA has at their disposal, depending on what the response is. I really don't think the NSA is willing to compromise the secrecy of its capabilities in order to thwart hackers.
Seth
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I doubt the authors claims regarding the state of the NSA. It's fun to take a poke at big agencies like the NSA because they fit into that 'big bad government' mythology that is so prevalent today. He's presuming the NSA is somehow more effective than any other large organization. (public OR private)
What I doubt is the possibility that a new agency would, in fact, respect the personal freedoms as spelled out in the constitution and probably codified with laws and court precedence. The steady corrosion of discipline and 8 years of Executive Office supremacy has worn away the last of the ideals spelled out in the Constitution.
The last new agency I can recall is the Homeland Security Agency. They were gifted all kinds of previously independent agencies. The benefits are equally unclear on all sides of that monolith.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
if the Federal government must play a role, then Congress and President Obama should turn to another agency without a record of creating mistrust
Like, the FBI? Or perhaps the NRO? The CIA is just down the road. Maybe NASA could do it. Really - the facts are these - NSA already has the equipment, connections and brain power. You'll have a very difficult time replicating, much less staffing any enterprise like the NSA.
Legally, they really are disqualified from performing the role of domestic spying. After all, they're administered by DOD, they've skirted American law by utilizing foreign bases for gathering, and are well known for bending the arms of domestic telecom companies.
But they are a working tool - and they get the job done. It's difficult to argue against something that, so far, seems to work.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Here's an idea: if the NSA has gotten to the point that even the White House or Congress can't control them, cut off their funding altogether and wish their employees good luck finding jobs. Create a new, much smaller NSA that has the authority to do one thing and only one thing: handle security for other government agencies, such as setting minimum standards for TOP SECRET transmission.
Perhaps he is a little misguided in saying that we need to put the job in another agency's hands, but his reason for thinking so is not. I mean what we really need to do is take some power out of the NSA's hands. This is more of the mess left by the Bush Administration. They gave them so much power because of after 9/11 and the war on terrorism. It was a big problem immediately following 9/11 because we all wanted security so much we didn't realize how much we were losing. Obama is partially to blame for this when we voted to let the telcom companies off the hook last year. Perhaps it is time to give the Patriot Act the ax or rename it the Unconstitutional Act.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
All this beating up on the NSA is fun and stuff, but are we really complaining that we don't have a competent domestic spying agency? We've already proven as a society to be incapable of electing a majority of leaders that respect privacy and are willing to give up a little temporary safety for essential liberty. So would it actually make us happy to have a bunch of g-men who are intelligent when it comes to new technology and could really fully exploit all the powers of databases and networks and algorithms to spy on us in an incredibly thorough manner?
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Long story short, this guy is an idiot. I could go on at great length, but I'll just leave at this. (If anyone does want to discuss specifics in greater detail...which I'm sure they won't...I'd be happy to reply)
First, a former CIA analyst from 10+ years ago doesn't know anything about the way NSA works. "CIA analysts" are the grunts of the intelligence community...more often than not they're the ones with english and political science degrees hired right out of college after having a grand time studying abroad in Prague or Barcelona. The author of this piece not only has CIA analyst on his resume but also Army...before making the jump to become a contractor (which could be anything from a security guard to copier technician). Anyway...
Additionally, what he thinks he knows is ludicrous, and I've just picked (IMHO) the most egregious example:
Whenever I met with my NSA counterparts, it was clear that they were stymied by new-generation Western-engineered telephone networks and mobile technologies that were then spreading like wildfire in the developing world and former Soviet satellite countries.
Total nonsense. The proliferation of cellphones/satellite phones/wifi etc around the world has been one of the best things to happen to the NSA in YEARS. To claim otherwise is nutty.
the National Security Agency is 'a secretive, hidebound culture incapable of keeping up with innovation,
Yeah, right. That's why the NSA-proprietary software actually works and the rest of the DoD is "innovating" by wasting billions of dollars on contractor-developed software that doesn't work. Maybe he thinks innovation means cutting off USB ports like the Army has done?
I don't see the CIA contributing any code to us.
If the CIA wants the NSA to stay out of domestic security, I say they can prove it by putting their programmers where their mouth is. All I'm seeing from my point of view is the NSA doing a lot of contributing and the CIA doing a lot of bitching.