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Obama Nominates Vice Admiral Michael Rogers New NSA Chief
wiredmikey writes "President Barack Obama has nominated a US Navy officer, Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, to take over as head of the embattled National Security Agency, the Pentagon said Thursday. Rogers, 53, would take the helm at a fraught moment for the spy agency, which is under unprecedented pressure after leaks from ex-intelligence contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of its electronic spying. If confirmed by lawmakers, Rogers would also take over as head of the military's cyber warfare command. Rogers, who trained as an intelligence cryptologist, would succeed General Keith Alexander, who has served in the top job since 2005. He currently heads the US Fleet Cyber Command, overseeing the navy's cyber warfare specialists, and over a 30-year career has worked in cryptology and eavesdropping, or 'signals intelligence.' His confirmation hearings in the Senate are likely to be dominated by the ongoing debate about the NSA's espionage, and whether its sifting through Internet traffic and phone records violates privacy rights and democratic values."
Is this what companies do when their product turns out to have lead paint in it or something.
The 12 zillionth story on NSA and Snowden and you couldn't find a bitcoin connection to go with it? Sloppy submission here.
"Yes"
"Can you spy a lot?"
"Yes"
"You're hired."
new hiring practice at the NSA
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The business of Admirals is to kill people and destroy their property. An Admiral won't mind smaller violence like breaking constitutional law, lying to the public, and spending taxpayer dollars on projects to make money for a few.
"Developing countries have reacted angrily to revelations that the United States spied on other governments at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009."
"Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored communication between key countries before and during the conference to give their negotiators advance information about other positions at the high-profile meeting where world leaders including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel failed to agree to a strong deal on climate change." link
This suddenly makes me rather sad that the filibuster rules were changed for appointment confirmations. The Republicans had been using the filibuster against appointments far too frequently (traditionally one only goes after appointments if there is a serious problem), but this is precisely the kind of appointment where it might be useful. Even if I think most of them are cynical opportunists, I should very much like the opposition use this chance to put more pressure on the security state.
...to the problem that is the NSA is the entire dismantling of the NSA as an agency. This indicates that won't happen. I'm, of course, not surprised.
No need for all of that. Bush II was a popular governor who reached across the aisle, so many people thought he'd be a decent president. It turned out that he wasn't Obama talked a good game, he sounded inspirational. People thought he might be good. It turns out he isn't very good. That happens.
I'm sure almost all of the liberals here would love to trade Obama for JFK, just like conservatives would have resurrected Reagan to replace Bush if the could, but the good presidents are dead. The liberals know that. They aren't stupid (most of them). Okay, a lot of the electorate is uninformed, but even most of the uniformed realize that Obama was an error. No need to rub it in. YOU probably voted for Bush Jr. Oops. Happens to the best of us
"If confirmed by lawmakers, Rogers would also take over as head of the military's cyber warfare command." Where his main job will be to weaken internet encryption standards while blaming everything on the Chinese.
He knows how to mine data effectively and have people thank him for the privilege of being spied on.
Same as the old Boss.
... or is anyone else disturbed by the number of military personnel being appointed to civilian posts in the US government recently?
At what point do we just give up and announce that we're ruled by a junta already?
"Mike Rogers"? The exact same name as the representative...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Rogers_(Michigan_politician)
FTWA - Rogers has reaffirmed his support for the NSA's programs, stating on October 30, 2013, "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated."
That's like electing "Obama/Biden" because of subliminal regret over "Osama BinLaden".
A quick search didn't turn up any answers that inspired confidence, I figured there must be people here who can answer...
Another general (admiral) in charge of our top security agency. Talk about putting the fox in charge of the hen house!
Nothing will change. It's a formality and nothing more. There might be some hard questions asked. Perhaps, even in closed door meetings away from the public. Back room deals will be offered. Concessions will be made. And he'll likely be appointed, as that's what happens in this situation. We won't see the real transparency that we the people deserve. And that right there, is the problem. No one, will hold anyone in position, accountable for this absurdity.
Don't worry, this is the dawning of the age of aquarius man.
The NSA's job is to spy, so it makes sense to hire SIGINT people. The recent problem is who they've been spying on.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
True indeed. In the last few elections, neither party had very attractive candidates make it past the primaries. Early on, McCain's long record of working across party lines made him very appealing. Then he went stupid and picked Palin apparently without spending any time with her, just based on demographics and "maverick" status for going against the party. Sure, demographically she's a good balance for him. He's old, she's young. He's male, she's female. He's experienced, she's clueless. Wtf - clueless is not okay.
I am going Tea.
I was a Obama democrat, but I see now to starve the beast we must kill its tax dollars.
It doesn't really matter when the thing started because agencies that ignore the existence of the Constitutions are malicious cancers that can one day kill the nation.
It is up to the President of the United States to SHUT DOWN the offending agency (and / or agencies) in order to stem the malicious progression of these dangerous agencies.
The fact that Obama refuses to shut it down says a lot about the lack of integrity of the individual. As the POTUS he has to answer not only to his own office, but also to the hundreds of millions of the Citizens of the United States of America - and in this role, Obama has failed his job as the POTUS, the oval office - the satus of which the POTUS represents, and, the ***NATION*** !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
When is Clapper getting charged with lying to Congress? He even admitted to it.
Good. That's the sort of thing the NSA should be doing. Providing a dossier on the expected positions of other countries in a major summit.
>Providing a dossier on the positions
Fixed that for you.
Only way I'll consider this a change to be a move towards adult leadership is if the new guy dismantles the starship bridge and starts getting serious about a real "cyber" DEFENSE instead of running a "malware of the month club" employing contract PFY script kiddies. If DoD can't get that done maybe half their budget should be peeled off and donated to a private foundation that can. We need to close as many security holes as we can and deploy more robust defenses to preserve our the global communications and computing infrastructure. I'm thinking that the US DoD, which includes the NSA, has demonstrated an inability, an unwillingness, to take on that difficult task -- whether because they're too stupid or too lazy to succeed at it. In any event, they've been shown to have a fatal conflict of interest, leaving us with no choice but to completely reject anything they say now as untrustworthy.
Just start loading large numbers of people...oh excuse me, "undesirables" into box cars and kill them and be done with it.
This can't lead to anything else.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
at least it wasn't a rear admiral; else we'd all be proper fucked
He's worse than Bush the W could ever have been, all of this after he promised to rid us of Bush's tyranny.
Hah. Aren't we the suckers?
This act wasn't etched in stone by God on a mountaintop; someone wrote it. While the bumblefuck congresscritters that voted on it without reading are accomplices, the real traitors are the authors that should be tried and convicted by the very judicial system they betrayed.
Even more so when you consider that:
1) This was the summit where Russia conveniently made a fuss about the hacked CRU e-mails that were taken only a few weeks before the summit
2) Climate change has a genuine impact on national security interests, as it can change the quality of habitability of areas leading to destabilisation
Really, when Russia tried to pull the rug out from under the summit because it's entire survival post-USSR collapse has been built off burning fossil fuels by being the likely culprit behind the CRU hack the subsequent propaganda campaign I'm kinda glad the NSA is involved with that particular one. Whatever your thoughts are on the reality of climate change I wouldn't fancy the idea of Russia doing such things unchallenged and without the other heads of state getting a heads up and hence getting to dictate the climate story all by itself and unilaterally influencing such important summits to it's benefit and only it's benefit.
I think that at such critical choke-points it would be wise to have 2 (or better 3) "co-heads." Despite the inevitable clash of egos and the well-known "rule-by-committee" issues, the greater likelihood of accountability and transparency would make this a better option.