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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
"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
He knows how to mine data effectively and have people thank him for the privilege of being spied on.
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.
The business of Admirals is to defend the people of the United States with wise use of the Navy. Failing that, to cover their butts until they can retire.
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.
Which is exactly why they need to stop putting military people in these positions.
Yes civilians can do that stuff too, but at least there's a chance, however small, that things might change. Putting another Admiral or General in charge guarantees that nothing will change.
... 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?
A quick search didn't turn up any answers that inspired confidence, I figured there must be people here who can answer...
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.
Citation needed.
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.
Could you add some details to that? Why do you think a military officer would be less inclined to follow the law than a civilian? Besides that, do you realize that there is a strong ethic of being apolitical in the US military? Is you position simply antimilitary?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The history of the US Navy and codes is complex, conservative (no sharing) vs the UK and US Army and understanding pre WW2 Japan.
During WW2 the US Navy had to/was ordered to share and you had the 1942 and 1944 Holden Agreement's with the UK.
During the Cold War you saw US Navy elint aircraft in the 1950's later NSA/US Navy efforts like Ivy Bells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
The now US seems fixated with contractors, mercenaries, the private sector has vetting issues and a massive expansion of staff with skills but unknown backgrounds.
The US has the total global electronic high ground both in space, online and as basic global telco infrastructure/standards as well as setting/keeping global junk encryption.
China and Russia do not have the bases/location reach and are geographically isolated, contained.
The EU mil elite is subservient/dependant wrt the USA. What has changed after Snowden?
The US color of law of parallel construction and a vast illegal domestic surveillance network is now understood.
Expect a lot more crypto hardware, software to be in use - more gov and private expansion to fix any internal issues and grow the NSA. Politically outpace the CIA and secure other US mil/gov crypto/cyber/war related funding.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
> Why do you think a military officer would be less inclined to follow the law than a civilian?
Why do you think a civilian would be more willing to follow illegal orders? The willingness of military to follow the chain of command is indoctrinated into them at every stage of their training and service. It is an _exceptional_ military leader who can see the larger political or moral picture. When those personnel's illegal orders or political abuses are walled behind national security claims, their indoctrinated willingness to follow orders without moral question encourages their actions, and political use of their willingness, to include abuse.
I am going Tea.
I was a Obama democrat, but I see now to starve the beast we must kill its tax dollars.
Thank you. I was beginning to think I was alone, and that all my fellow Democrats had completely abandoned the concept of individual liberty and freedom from illegal and un-Constitutional government mass surveillance on citizens.
I used to bash, taunt, and denigrate the TEA people. I don't anymore. I put aside my bias and anger and actually looked at the things they are for with an open mind. I'm not in agreement with much of what they say they're for, but there is a LOT of common ground surrounding the issues of citizen's civil rights wrt/vs the US government.
What we have here are CIVIL RIGHTS violations that affect everyone, regardless of your politics. This is a struggle between the people and the government for supremacy and control.
Fuck it, we can argue about abortion, gay marriage, etc AFTER we join together and toss these assholes out. I mean, who doesn't understand by now that 98% of the BS the political Beltway talking heads argue about is simply a distraction to avert the publics attention away from those in government increasing their power and control at the cost of our liberty, privacy, and ability to provide for ourselves and our families?
Maybe *this* is the trigger that presages a new paradigm where citizens of all ethnicities and political stripe unify at least partially in pure self-defense of their civil rights and survival of their individual liberty and privacy against the tyrannical government behemoth.
I think history will look back very favorably on Mr. Snowden, *IF* we heed his warnings in time.
If in 100 years history calls Snowden a traitor/criminal, then that same history will also note the collapse of the US into an authoritarian police state.
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.
Why do you think a civilian would be more willing to follow illegal orders?
The majority of military people I've met seem to believe in their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution from all enemies.
The majority of civilians I've met are fucking morons, who wouldn't hesitate to twerk atop the Constitution until it was torn to shreds, if only because think of the children/zomg terrorists/zomg gay people kissing/zomg religious people teaching creationism/etc.
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.
Wasn't it cool when we had a pro-liberty, anti-censorship party on the one hand, and a small government party on the other? Those were the days ...
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
"Uphold the constitution" is an ideal. What it means, every day, boils down to "obey the chain of command".
Moreover, the Constitution is not enough. The prisoners in Guantanamo Bay have been ruled, by the previous commander in chief, not have the Constitution or the Geneva Conventions or the US Military Code of Justice apply to them. And so they are trapped, concealed, tortured, some of them tortured to death.
I'm not saying that civilians cannot commit abuses. I'm saying that the disciplined behavior of military personnel given such orders makes them far less likely to refuse the orders, or to expose abuses by their colleagues.
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.
So, that stopped military folks at Guantanamo Bay from doing the same things we hung people at the Nuremberg trials for? Or, has prevented rape epidemics, primarily responded to by cover-ups? How about convincing people not to invade countries on politically motivated known faulty intelligence? So far as I can tell, the people in recent decades who've been protecting constitutional rights and opposing illegal wars, torture, domestic spying, etc., have not been wearing military uniforms.
Fuck it, we can argue about abortion, gay marriage, etc AFTER we join together and toss these assholes out.
No, you can't --- because if the people you're helping into power are doing so on an ideologically driven platform of denying freedom and equality, you're not going to improve the situation. Putting oppressive religious extremists who happen to want to cut their personal tax bills into the seats of power is not going to help anyone. A free country can work with leaders who say "I personally oppose abortion and same-sex marriage, but I will fight to the death to preserve your freedoms to act on your own conscious" --- but Tea Party nutters, on the other hand, typically use forcing people to their religious beliefs as a major selling point for kicking the current assholes out. A deeper understanding of freedom, beyond "we want more freedom to trample on people unlike us," is not an attribute of the American Taliban --- oops, Tea --- party.
Look, there are four basic ways to get Obama out of office, and you know what they all are:
* He could resign. Certainly all of us could think of reasons for him to do so, but that depends on HIM deciding that he's got a good enough reason to do so (and enough pressure from outside sources).
* The senate could impeach, convict, and remove him from office via their normal Constitutional power to do so, provided they have an actual legal reason to DO so. Care to cite an actual law he's broken? I can't think of one.
* He could die. In which case, you just let the 25th Amendment do its job and Biden takes the presidency. Can't see that going too well for Obama haters, though.
* Or, hey, here's a thought: his second term expires in a few years. Hold a regular election and let the 22nd Amendment do its job.
Care to expand upon one of those?
Hmm, none whatsoever of the sources you assume I'm getting info about the Tea party from (OFA website, Salon, the MSM, or HuffPo) are on my regular reading list. You seem to be basing your assumptions about my knowledge and motivations on a carefully-crafted straw-man version of generic "Liberal" thought. You already seem to know which "people I support in D.C." --- strange, I didn't mention that. And you're generally wrong, thanks to the preconceptions stilled in your mind by your propaganda overlords (speaking of "divide and conquer strategy").
Can a Christian force an Atheist-owned bakery, under the same laws, to bake Christian religious-themed cakes against their wishes and beliefs? How about a Muslim bakery and a Jewish wedding cake?
You do realize, in the case you are referring to, that the bakery was not forced to make a "gay themed wedding cake." They were asked to provide a cake, the exact same service they provide to any other customer that walked in the door. They weren't required to write "I love anal sex" in the frosting, or decorate the cake with erect wieners. When a person goes into a sandwich shop and asks for a sandwich on the menu, I don't support the shop's right to say "we don't serve black people here, get out." If a Muslim bakery only does wedding cakes with Islamic religious symbols, and that's what they offer to all their customers, then they shouldn't be expected to turn out a special-order star-of-David cake. But, they should be expected to offer the same services to red-headed customers as to blond customers. Allowing businesses to discriminate based on the race, gender, creed, etc., of their customers --- people buying the same stuff they sell to everyone else --- has a nasty history, and is not conducive to a free society.
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.
no you had two center right parties one of which has been taken over by right wing extremists
Ohh, you're one of those. Well, glad you had your Two Minutes Hate against Trotsky, err, Goldstein, err, right wing extremists, and can go back to obeying those causing the problems.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.