NSA Ill-Suited For Domestic Cybersecurity Role 72
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.'"
Re:Like who? (Score:3, Informative)
The NSA also has an already existing and mature Information Assurance [nsa.gov] mission with experts publishing freely available cyber security guidance [nsa.gov], configuration guides [nsa.gov] and software [nsa.gov].
In my opinion the NSA already has the expertise and experience required. Not everyone working there is assigned to domestic espionage.
NSA more innovative than the DoD (Score:4, Informative)
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?
Re:Good Luck with That (Score:3, Informative)
Yes...But no.
The cops are the cops. Regular local law enforcement. Their jurisdiction is their local county/city.
Then you have the state investigators. Basically the *BI. Like the FBI, but on the state level. They only deal with major crime, but only on a state level.
Then you get the FBI. Major crime, federal level.
CIA only deal with you dirty foreigners.
NSA doesn't exist. Duh.
The Marshall's deal with escaped prisoners.
Homeland security is a republican pork project. There are cities in kansas that got more "terror" money than major cities that might actually get attacked. Don't confuse them with an actual agency.
ATF and DEA and such are basically the enforcement arm of regulatory agencies. They have very narrow interests.
Most of these organizations are very hierarchical. Police, State investigators, Federal investigators. Police, DEA. Police, ATF. Police, State Investigators. I once did a big seminar on whether or not it'd make sense to fold (for example) the ATF into the FBI, and when it comes down to it, it just doesn't make sense. They don't do the same stuff.
That's about it.