X

Keeping tabs on the NSA

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
Expertise AI, tech, language, grammar, writing, editing Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
Jon Skillings
2 min read

The National Security Agency would prefer to do its work out behind closed doors, but it's starting off the new year at the center of a fierce public debate.

The U.S. spy organization--so secretive that its acronym is jokingly spelled out as "No Such Agency"--came under fire last month for its widespread post-9/11 practice, authorized by President Bush, of eavesdropping on the communications of U.S. citizens at home. Privacy advocates have criticized the "vacuum-cleaner style dragnets" electronically cast by the NSA; backers of the program say it's necessary to fight a shadowy terrorist threat.

Whether the program is right or wrong, some are questioning how well it works, period. An article by Michael Hirsh in Sunday's Washington Post, for one, argues that "the NSA is overwhelmed by millions of phone calls and e-mail contacts that it simply can't digest. And it's not just a question of finding the needle in the haystack; today's surveillance professionals aren't sure what the needle looks like. "

Hirsh goes on to suggest the the NSA hire "the Turings of our day--mainly computer hackers" to track terrorists "at the only place they still communicate electronically, on Web sites."

Blog community response:

"Conversation between U.S. persons and a known terrorists should be monitored. But those conversations should be monitored in a way maximizes the security of the American people. Bush's secret program doesn't do it. We'd be much safer if he would cancel it and start following the law."
--Think Progress

"Given the obvious absence of publicly-available performance metrics, I'm loathe to make a judgment on the effectiveness sigint vs. internet monitoring, other than to say that we should be doing both, and need to make investments that can be easily modified to keep up with the introduction of new tactics and technologies."
--Homeland Security Watch

"By the government's own admission, they are pulling in 650 million intercepts of communications a day. A day!!!! Al Qaeda is making 650 million calls to people in the United States a day? Who knew?"
--FeleG's View on the American Scene

"So, when Richard Nixon said, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal," that became a national law? If anyone remembers correctly, Richard Nixon was forced to resign because he did illegal things. Why doesn't Shrub have to resign? He's clearly doing ILLEGAL things. He's even trying to defend these ILLEGAL things."
--Who's afraid of a little political science?