|
NSA Sends Out Spyware
SecurityProNews
John Stith
December 27, 2005
Scandals continue runs rampant through the nation over recent admissions by
the federal government of eavesdropping. The issue has tuned into an argument
over presidential powers. One aspect to this argument focuses on the Internet
world. The NSA uses spyware as part of their electronic eavesdropping
network.
According to a recent article in BetaDot, this spyware is the most
classified application to exist in the current administration. While there are
many who question the NSA's need to utilize spyware and to eavesdrop at all on
the U.S. population, there is a legitimate need for cyber security on the
Internet.
A point to consider would be the recent hacking of both U.S. military and
defense contractor computer systems. Things like this show there is a need to
for more secure networks and the NSA, utilizing their authority correctly would
help to block these types of assaults and other national security issues. The
problem would come if the NSA overstepped those boundaries and infringed upon
our civil rights.
The BetaDot article quoted Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) co-founder
John Gilmore as saying, "The clues are piling up that vacuum-cleaner style
dragnets are what's at issue, perhaps they've pointed the NSA vacuum cleaner
straight into all U.S.-based international telecommunications."
Republicans spent billions of dollars more than Bush wanted and, as part of
the final deal, blocked funding for research for a Pentagon project -- called
Total Information Awareness -- designed to monitor Internet e-mail and
commercial databases as a way to track terrorists. Worried the project would
invade Americans' privacy, conferees restricted further Pentagon research
without first extensively consulting with Congress.
|