Former NSA Genius Apologizes for His Super Spying Software

Thanks for the Link, GA for you

You're welcome!

Wow, I just took some time to read through the whole article and don't know where to begin other than everyone needs to take the time to read it.

and another thanks from me, too!

Reading it is a good thing. Doing something about it would be better.

Me too, thanks.

If this would be made into a movie it would flop. Why? Because the plot is frozen and the freezer will just not fail. DORL have mercy if it would. All seems to be were it belongs and to make that change and press the defrost button is asking a bit much off the real-politics of today.

Just on the side and not to distract from what is happening in this case, Julian Assange comes to mind. I would like to know what he had up his sleeve so that he was not touched, killed but only had a tag put on him. How is the most hated traitor (by some) of the modern era still not being brought before the courts. What a life insurance policy that must be.

Well, I am not sure were he is and how the 'raped' women are coping but if it did not work with him they could try it on someone else, see if it works this time. It worked this time and justice has prevailed and the French are furious but who cares, the IMF will cope, just.

Julian's style and what he/it achieved and is still achieving, shows true selfless (profit?) character and you could fit his leaks into to thumb drive, no need for basements full of old data and people regretting not having made more money out of the whole exercise. Imagine! All that money! For what?

Like I said, the movie version would flop, unless someone would cut power to the freezer and get Arnie off the Sheila's and make us want to be on the "right" side.

I can still find a funny side to this all. Amazing, Ky.

I'm surprised this has not received more comments. It reads like a Philip K. Dick novel. A government bureaucracy operating with such a large budget and such little oversight from the people's Representatives is very dangerous. As I recall the EU raised protests against the use of Echelon back in the 90's because it was being used for industrial/corporate espionage. I'm not sure if ThinThread rendered that program obsolete or simply enveloped it into a, now, larger listening program... I have more to say, but I'm afraid the NSA is listening...

Apart from some of the obvious surprise, non-surprise, disgust, and contempt at the NSA's actions and other agencies' non-actions, I ask myself, "given this system exists, how many leaks are actually leaks and how many are just someone(s) spoon feeding the public?

To what end?

re: "given this system exists, how many leaks are actually leaks and how many are just someone(s) spoon feeding the public?"

I'd have to guess control/power. To what end I'm not entirely sure... just thinking out loud here...

One for example might be wikileaks. There are questions regarding the sources in that the supposed leak is ranked way too low to have access to the type of documents leaked. So perhaps it was knowingly and willingly passed along to him in an effort to oust someone larger or change the majority opinion on some subject or policy.

Stories like this always make me raise an eyebrow because it doesn't exactly make sense at face value. So I have to fill in the gaps... perhaps the leak was simply motivated by his greed (but then why prosecute?)... perhaps he was convinced to leak the information in order to smear the clients (which leads to better reasoning as to his arrest)...

I've often heard the phrase that "you only know what you've been told."

Perhaps it is as simple as No Such Agency is used to being shrouded in the shadows of our government and has found itself (its managers anyway) uncomfortable in the spotlight of journalistic and popular scrutiny. Bringing the hammer down on a peon will keep any other employees from revealing the fact that the NSA is not a stream-lined, well tuned spying machine, but rather an over-bloated, politically motivated, festering bureaucracy.

Perhaps... and probably more likely!

I seem to remember the old USSR's draconian justice system locked most troublemakers up for "security" reasons as well.

Personally, I think that publicity is the only thing that keeps big bureaucracies honest.

They always have a good (in the national interest) reason to hid their mistakes and if they can't get caught they won't improve.

" A former senior official with the National Security Agency reached a plea agreement Thursday with the Justice Department, bringing a quick end to a case that pitted the government's need to keep secrets against the public's right to know."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110610/D9NON8VO0.html