Need for change at NSA

ARTICLE: Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms, By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, July 3, 2009

Hard to see this one working without essential changes to the National Security Agency itself, otherwise the conspiracy thinkers will have several good points that will always be impossible to refute.

I don't know if you don't break off a chunk of NSA for this purpose, or you revamp their status as something less than/other than an intelligence agency.

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

All the way back in fall 1997 the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection released its final support. It clearly (probably for all time everywhere) adopted the principle that cyber security was a totally seperate world from physical security for the US. This fundamental distinction has been followed by delay, waste, fraud, and abuse and incompetence politically by various administrations including this one and Congress. One of the two principle rationales for creating DHS was cyber security (the other being domestic intel collection analysis and dessimination. Neither of these goals has been accomplished. China and Russia lead in cyber penertration issues and the US is very vulnerable. A recent 60 day review by the OBAMA Administration has resulted in a postponement until the end of year of any real decisions or implementation. Just as you suggest, NSA should probably become a civil governmental structure but serving both the intel, DOD and civil government. This would definitely require its culture change/evolution. It is clear that cyber security and related issues is highly technical. DOD just established its own Cyber Command but without many implementing details.What is also clear is that the real threats are cyber and probably there should be a 2/3 shifting of physical security funding to cyber efforts. Of course deeply classified is the US capability at conducting cyber warfare just as economic warfare by the US is a lost art but perhaps not by AQ. All part of the consequences of Globalization! Cleary the bytes and bits of the financial manipulators on Wall Street should have been studied as a "Domestic Terrorist" threat. Is any of the current economic collapse related to cyber issues? Probably!