Re: Obama reverses course on privacy … again
- From: jim@xxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:36:04 GMT
On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:47:12 -0700, Sordo® <sordo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Obama reverses course on privacy ? again
July 3, 2009
by Ed Morrissey
http://hotair.com
The more Barack Obama learns about George W. Bush, the more he seems to
like his predecessor. In yet another reversal from his campaign
rhetoric and another broken promise to the Left, the Obama
administration has adopted a Bush administration plan to use the NSA to
secure private computer networks. The decision contradicts Obama?s
earlier position that he would not allow the NSA to have access to
private communications networks:
The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use
National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer
traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site,
according to three current and former government officials.
President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect
computer systems from attack would not involve ?monitoring
private-sector networks or Internet traffic,? and Department of Homeland
Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going
to or from government systems.
That was then. This is now:
But the program has provoked debate within DHS, the officials said,
because of uncertainty about whether private data can be shielded from
unauthorized scrutiny, how much of a role NSA should play and whether
the agency?s involvement in warrantless wiretapping during George W.
Bush?s presidency would draw controversy. Each time a private citizen
visited a ?dot-gov? Web site or sent an e-mail to a civilian government
employee, that action would be screened for potential harm to the
network.
?We absolutely intend to use the technical resources, the
substantial ones, that NSA has. But . . . they will be guided, led and
in a sense directed by the people we have at the Department of Homeland
Security,? the department?s secretary, Janet Napolitano, told reporters
in a discussion about cybersecurity efforts.
Under a classified pilot program approved during the Bush
administration, NSA data and hardware would be used to protect the
networks of some civilian government agencies. Part of an initiative
known as Einstein 3, the plan called for telecommunications companies to
route the Internet traffic of civilian agencies through a monitoring box
that would search for and block computer codes designed to penetrate or
otherwise compromise networks.
No matter how the White House tries to cut it rhetorically, the NSA will
have to look at traffic from private networks to protect public ones.
This is so obviously true that it defies common sense to think
otherwise. You are likely accessing Hot Air through a private network,
such as Comcast, Verizon, Cox, or a workplace-based network with a
connection directly to the Internet. (We won?t rat you out if it?s the
latter ? trust us.) If you move from Hot Air to, say, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics, then the traffic to that server passes through both
private and public networks. The only way the NSA won?t access
private-network traffic would be if they only looked at accesses from
within the federal network, which would be pointless in preventing hack
attacks on government servers.
In a sense, this is no different than George Bush?s Terrorist
Surveillance Program at the NSA ? only Bush?s TSP required some
reasonable cause for surveillance. TSP intended to prevent terrorist
attacks by surveilling communication traffic from or to people outside
the US, prompted by discoveries of suspected terrorist communication
points. The NSA in this program checks communications entirely within
the US, as well as coming from outside, in order to find potential
attacks on our infrastructure. AT&T will route any communications to
any government website through NSA for surveillance during the Einstein
3 test phase, for instance, regardless of probable cause, and the rest
of the carriers would follow suit once Einstein 3 passes its initial
tests.
Like the TSP, I don?t see this as a big problem, except for occasional
latency issues when unemployment reports get released. We have an
interest in protecting our public systems from attack, and the privacy
issues are minimal ? just as with Bush?s TSP. But it represents a major
shift from the campaign, and even from last May, for Obama, who appears
to like the power against which he railed for more than two years as a
candidate.
A naive man of no principles willing to say anything, and flip on the
point repeatedly.
.
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