NSA Scandal: How Can They Be Shocked?

By Rich Kozlovich

On June 6^th an article by  Andrew C. McCarthy  appeared titled, “Phone Record Gathering Story Blown Out of Proportion”.   I know I'm going to shock some of my readers, because I agree in large part with this article. 

For days I have been watching this play out with a large degree of amusement.  Why?  Because I always knew this was going on.  Did I know the extent of it?  Well....yes in a sort of roundabout way.  Does anyone out there remember that I have often posted comments about the VENONA intercepts?  These were finally declassified and released in….I believe 1996.  VENONA was the code name for a program involving intercepted messages between the Soviet Union and their spies in the U.S.  The information clearly showed that McCarthy was right.  The government, including the State Department, was filthy with communists, communist spies for Stalin, and fellow travelers.  Apparently the NSA was the agency that did the monitoring and that was how they ‘absolutely knew’ that atomic spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were guilty. 

NSA was created in 1949 as a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S. government communications and information systems, which involves information security and cryptanalysis/cryptography.

The NSA is directed by at least a lieutenant general or vice admiral. NSA is a key component of the U.S. Intelligence Community, which is headed by the Director of National Intelligence. The Central Security Service is a co-located agency created to coordinate intelligence activities and co-operation between NSA and other U.S. military cryptanalysis agencies. The Director of the National Security Agency serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and Chief of the Central Security Service.

By law, NSA's intelligence gathering is limited to foreign communications, although domestic incidents such as the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy have occurred.

So then, how did they intercept these Soviet spies if there can be no domestic spying?  I’m sure there were some sort of exceptions made involving totally internal American communications versus communications to a foreign entity of some sort, and understandably so.   After all, how can you catch spies if you can only listen to one side of the conversation? 

Naturally they used the most sophisticated equipment of the day.  Are we to suppose they still use that to attain intelligence?  No, as communications systems became more advanced so too did the NSA’s ability to monitor it become more sophisticated.  I mean….isn’t that kind of a ….DUH?  Many years ago I discussed this with someone - who I believe has now passed – and had been involved with computer programming for the NSA.  He told me that they have programs that will do things that would amaze you if they could implement them.  I asked why they didn’t.  He said the problem is in the hardware.  They didn’t’ have the hardware capable of running them.  Are we to believe that was going to be a permanent situation?  We shouldn’t!

As more types of communications systems became in vogue the NSA had to adapt and go beyond what is out there.  In short they had to be ahead of everything available.  Not as easy today as in the past.   

At any rate, what amuses me about this is the outrage exhibited by people who had to know this was going on.  Maybe not to the extent is did, but let’s get real folks….did these people really believe ‘restraint’ is the motto in the intelligences services?  This should have been obvious to the most casual observer as day follows night and night follow day.If there is something secret out there - the government wants to know what it is - and they don’t care who’s secret it is.  So what is so secret about telephone calls, e-mails, etc.  Well, maybe something and maybe nothing….and in probably 99 percent of the cases….probably nothing.  It’s who are communicating with one another that becomes important. 

I have always believed phones are monitored legally and illegally.  I believe also that it is impossible to track, store, categorize and retrieve all that material unless it is being done to a small group of people.  I am also convinced that NSA has the most advanced computers in the world attempting to do all of that, but a person still needs to analyze it and make decisions regarding all that data.  Impossible, unless it is being narrowly directed. 

The author makes these points though;

With stories swirling around about the Obama administration siccing the IRS on the Tea Party and abusively spying on journalists, this revelation obviously strikes a disturbing chord……This is why it’s so critical to have a trustworthy president and administration – including an attorney general Congress can trust to provide truthful, accurate and complete information. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the Obama administration – with its serial lawlessness, authoritarian abuses of power to harass dissenters, and pattern of misleading and stonewalling Congress – has so grossly violated the public trust that it is unfit to exercise the executive’s awesome investigative authorities. It must also be observed, though, that those authorities exist because they are necessary to our security.  The problem here is not government power. It is the government officials we’ve elected to wield it. 

We need to understand that this scandal is going to go away because at some point the government will make superficial rules to appease their critics and everyone will inevitably realize there is no other way of getting the information they need about terrorists and spies.  

There is one last point I would like to make.  If the government should turn totalitarian that information could be used against any group on individuals the government didn’t like.  Say like, Christians.  Think about that.