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NSA Targeting Domestic Computer Systems

Posted by timothy on from the domestic-abuse dept.

The NSA was originally supposed to handle foreign intelligence, and leave the domestic spying to other agencies, but Presto Vivace writes with this bit from CNET: "'The National Security Agency's Perfect Citizen program hunts for vulnerabilities in 'large-scale' utilities, including power grid and gas pipeline controllers, new documents from EPIC show.' 'Perfect Citizen?' Who thinks up these names?" "The program is scheduled to continue through at least September 2014," says the article.

2 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Multiple missions, people seem to forget that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People seem to forget that Intelligence gathering is only part of NSA's mission.
    They are also tasked with ensuring the security of the nations computers, cryptosystems and more recently critical infrastructure. But people will believe what they want to believe, so any more when people ask me if stuff in Enemy of the State is accurate I tell them 100%. They're not likely to believe that no, it could actually take weeks-months to get reliable intel data and it's usually generated by some analyst that's 17-25 years old sitting in some windowless building with a crappy computer.

  2. Re:Imperfect citizens by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The same kind of people who dreamed up "Operation Enduring Freedom". At least they got the "Enduring" part right.