SENATE REPORT ON TECHINT AND NSA'S "TROUBLES."

[epsas at inflicted.net]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 03:06:12PM -0700, Dusty wrote:
> SENATE REPORT ON TECHINT AND NSA'S "TROUBLES."  US losing hi-tech spying race (BBC, 15 Aug 2001) - The US is lagging behind in the technology to spy on its enemies, endangering the country's security, a Senate report has warned. It says that a critical spying organization, the National Security Agency, has been 
> slow to adapt to the hi-tech challenges of the 21st century. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1491000/1491102.stm 
>  

Oh come on... $30 Billion a year, multiple satellite listening stations in the northern and southern hemispheres, taps on trans-oceanic fiber relays and control of a rumoured Echelon listening system...  and these guys are still whining about their lack of resources?   Come on now, there must be another reason for all this begging; a pork barrel is being unloaded in the military's trough, and these guys just want a space to squeeze their snout in.

What's going to satisfy these guys?  I mean, the genie is out of the bag - there is publically available encryption that would take ASCI White 2,000,000 years to crack - what kinds of attacks have they dreamed up for RSA, and what would the implementation costs of such a sytem cost?  What would the social costs be once it's built and operated?

Nuclear terrorists and Osama Bin Laden are one thing...  but we all know that the NSA is not going to use restraint with their systems if asked to do Cointelpro or Domestic Intelligence on anti-globalization "radicals" and other social activists.  With a vastly improved listening infrastructure, what is going to stop the NSA from performing some "just-in-case" spying on American citizens engaged in politically unpopular movements? -   

How would we know that they do not have these sorts of contingency plans in effect right NOW? - The answer is that we never will know, for it is not in the country's best interests to know the details of the NSA's actions.  The truly terrible threat of nuclear annihilation has always been good for justifying the sacrifice of certain constitutional rights...  

The NSA and their political cheerleaders really, and truly need to get bent.  There is a fine line between patriotism and fascism, and a nation which will let itself be blinded by the NSA's 'if-only-we-had...' jingoism could easily allow clueless or malevolent politicians to push it over that fine line. 


Peas,
Charles