NSA to defend against hackers-Privacy fears raised as spy agency turns to systems protection

[babylonsister]

NSA to defend against hackers

Privacy fears raised as spy agency turns to systems protection

By Siobhan Gorman | Sun reporter
September 20, 2007


In a major shift, the National Security Agency is drawing up plans for a new domestic assignment: helping protect government and private communications networks from cyberattacks and infiltration by terrorists and hackers, according to current and former intelligence officials.

snip//

Since the existence of its warrantless domestic eavesdropping program was revealed in 2005, the NSA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have been mired in a controversy over domestic intelligence activities. The Homeland Security Department recently came under fire amid Bush administration plans to broadly expand the use of satellite imagery to assist in federal, state and local law enforcement.

Current and former intelligence officials, including several NSA veterans, warned that the agency's venture into domestic computer and communications networks -- even if limited to protecting them -- could raise new privacy concerns. To protect a network, the government must constantly monitor it.

"This will create a major uproar," predicted Ira Winkler, a former NSA analyst who is now a cybersecurity consultant.

"If you're going to do cybersecurity, you have to spy on Americans to secure Americans," said a former government official familiar with NSA operations. "It would be a very major step."

more...

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.nsa20sep20,0,5183239,full.story

[Gabi Hayes]

1. I just finished a book the other day, in which one of the main premises is this:

national governments fail, public money systems fail, resulting in imaginable chaos

reason for it was even governments couldn't afford the computing expertise to protect data. all the best hackers, etc., worked for corporations or renegade richfux/drug dealers/smugglers, etc.

this resulted in the collapse of public monetary function (along with all national currencies), the rise of territorial currencies (similar to those which existed in the US and other countries before nationalization).

I wonder how far away from this we might be. does anyone honestly deny that just about ANYthing is possible now?