NSA Spies Running Dry?

[Magical Zombie Cow <waste@zor.hut.fi>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,32770,00.html

NSA Spies Running Dry? 
Wired News Report 

2:15 p.m. 29.Nov.1999 PST 

Spies at the US National Security Agency may be having trouble
eavesdropping on information transmitted through the Internet and
fiber optic cables.

NSA officials also cannot readily decipher encrypted communications
exchanged by North Korean officials, according to an article in the 6
December issue of The New Yorker.

Advances in computer technology -- some helped along by the US
government -- have made the once-secret spy agency's job much more
difficult, according to the article written by Seymour Hersh.

The NSA failed, for instance, to uncover information about India's
1998 nuclear tests, which took Washington by surprise.

"The NSA's party line to Congress is 'We're fine. We don't need to
change,'" one source told Hersh. "It's like a real Communist
organization. Free thought is not encouraged."

But some critics believe the NSA is trying to use the media to
downplay its broad intelligence-gathering capabilities before planned
congressional oversight hearings next year.

CNN's David Ensor last week aired a very similar report that also said
new technologies "threaten to make the NSA's big ears go increasingly
deaf."

"The worldwide move to digital, rather than analog, phones and other
equipment is making eavesdropping more difficult. So are fax machines
and the move to fiber optic cables, which are much harder to tap into.
So is the increasing availability of good encryption software," Ensor
said.

Widespread rumors that the NSA regularly engages in illegal
surveillance of US citizens -- aided by such techno-thrillers as Enemy
of the State -- gained more credibility this year when the agency
refused to turn over important information to Congress.

Citing attorney-client privilege, the NSA declined to reveal
information about its internal operating procedures.

In an angry response, the House Select Committee on Intelligence
drafted a requirement forcing the NSA and the attorney general to
prepare a report by the end of January "providing a detailed analysis
of the legal standards employed by elements of the intelligence
community in conducting signals intelligence activities, including
electronic surveillance."

Signals intelligence refers to the collection of intelligence data
from sources that include electronic or radio communications.

The legislation is part of the large spending bill that President
Clinton signed on Monday. (Just to make their point absolutely clear,
House appropriators also sliced the NSA's legal budget by 33 percent.)

"The information we get back in that report will shape how any
hearings turn out," said an aide to Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia), a
frequent NSA critic.

The aide said one focus of the hearings, which will happen no earlier
than February, will be "how well do 1970s laws governing surveillance
work in the 1990s?"

The ACLU and the Electronic Privacy Information Center recently
launched Echelon Watch, a site designed to prompt governmental
investigation into the reality -- and the legalities -- of a global
electronic surveillance system code-named Echelon.

"The solution is oversight, accountability, and reform," says Marc
Rotenberg, director of EPIC.