NSA Complained It Wasn't Able To Spy Enough; Sought To Broaden Its Power

from the no,-seriously dept

Late on Friday, the NY Times reported on more from the Ed Snowden documents, highlighting how the NSA was whining internally that it didn't have enough power, and outlining how it planned to get even more. Because, apparently, spying on nearly everyone just wasn't enough. No, the NSA was fairly explicit in wanting to get rid of the "nearly" qualifier in that last sentence. Its goal was to be able to spy on "anyone, anytime, anywhere" and it didn't want anything like pesky little "laws" or "civil liberties" to get in the way of that goal.

Once again, we see that the claims from the NSA that it's concerned about "protecting" people from "cybersecurity" issues are completely bogus. The goal is and has always been to weaken cybersecurity wherever possible. There's much more in the article about the NSA's plans and capabilities, but those two paragraphs above seem to make the key points: the NSA has a ton of power and is constantly scheming to get more, even if laws are currently blocking that ability. Furthermore, it wants to make us all less safe in its efforts to reach that goal.
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Filed Under: nsa, power, surveillance

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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 25 Nov 2013 @ 8:06am

    Re: I wonder...

    Why should they spin it? If you believe that more data = more security and security is to be prioritized over everything else, then it is a completely reasonable piece.

    Asking for triple a data (anytime, anyone, anywhere) is a natural request in that context and if you are as goal-driven as a military, you steer directly for that goal, no matter the costs for self and others.

    Consequencial logic taken to the extreme and a complete lack of broader adversarial protection, but in the end, politics works in much the same way, so politicians can relate!

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