NSA bribed Encryption Companies to Install Back Doors: Was the Law Broken? Did Obama Know?

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http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/encryption-companies-install.html

NSA bribed Encryption Companies to Install Back Doors: Was the Law Broken? Did Obama Know?
By Juan Cole | Dec. 22, 2013

Reuters gets the scoop: the National Security Agency gave internet security firm RSA some $10 million to use an NSA encryption formula in its BSafe software. RSA is now a subsidiary of the EMC corporation, and they have urged customers not to use BSafe since the revelations by Edward Snowden made clear that the NSA’s formula in fact allowed the agency access to all the information supposedly encrypted with it.

This story should be a huge scandal, but I fear it won’t be. This is like the FDA paying a pharmaceutical company to carry a drug that does not work and could therefore leave patients open to dying from an untreated illness after taking medication they are assured will cure it. If the NSA could exploit weaknesses in the encryption formula, so could hackers. The NSA subverted the will of millions of customers around the world who used RSA software precisely in a quest to be safe from the prying eyes of government officials and other peeping Toms.

Moreover, the $10 million has to be seen as a bribe (it was a third of that RSA’s income that year). Isn’t it illegal for government officials to bribe private companies? Isn’t it moreover illegal for intelligence officials to give out money like candy to a private company in order to spy on Americans on American soil?

I’d like to know what NSA official or officials were involved in this sting operation on the American people. I’d like to know if Barack Obama knew about it. I’d like to know if the corporate officials who accepted the “contract” with these strings attached knew they were screwing us all over.