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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.
"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?
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.
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
> 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.
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.
Serious question, not a semantic game: What is the difference between a cryptologist (as Rogers is described) and a cryptographer?
A cryptolologist speaks cryptically (from the greak "logos" - speech). A talent very much in need to (un)explain to other people (and potentially the congress) what NSA is doing.
A cryptographer writes or draws cryptical things (graphein - to write/draw). Given that even /.-ers don't have time to RTFA (even if they actually have time to otherwise waste engaging in comments... take this as an example)... ummm... not a very useful skill for the head of an govt agency.
(ducks)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
"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.
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.