The most telling part, for me, is here: > Everyone in the room was stunned, not least John Hamre, who had been sworn in as deputy secretary of defense at the e

The most telling part, for me, is here: > Everyone in the room was stunned, not least John Hamre, who had been sworn in as deputy secretary of defense at the end of July. Before then, Hamre had been the Pentagon’s comptroller, where he’d gone on a warpath to slash the military budget, especially the part secretly earmarked for the NSA. Through the 1980s, as a staffer for the Congressional Budget Office and the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hamre had grown to distrust the NSA: It was a dodgy outfit, way too covert, floating in the gray area between “military” and “intelligence” and evading the strictures on both. Hamre didn’t know anything about information warfare, and he didn’t care. I say, bravo to the NSA for uncovering the vulnerability. But, the cynic in my wonders how long anyone over there had suspected this, but never acted on it until faced with the threat of having feed pulled from the trough. My prejudices lead me to think of government as tending towards the dysfunctional. So, I worry if the same sort of thing isn't going on right now.