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The NSAs charter should be to secure this country and not attack others.
by timewizard 2y ago
The NSAs charter should be to secure this country and not attack others.
- tptacek 2y agoThat is literally the opposite of why NSA exists.
- timewizard 2y agoI think "literally the opposite" is incorrect. Their charter was to take over COMINT from the military into a new joint administrative agency. Their work includes securing communications between allies as much as it does breaking communications from our belligerents. This work necessarily provides them with the types of knowledge and experience that would be highly valuable in securing infrastructure against similar attacks. Likewise they've involved themselves in both improving and harming civilian cryptography systems and research for years. They're a complex agency and the value of COMINT can be realized under many different root paradigms. It's absurd to think otherwise.
- tptacek 2y agoNSA was chartered to break the codes of foreign powers.
- timewizard 2y agoThat's one aspect of COMINT. I use this term because NSA's charter, such that it exists, uses this term.
- tptacek 2y agoTheir primary mission is intrinsically offensive and always has been.
- dadrian 2y agoThat organization exists, and it is called the FBI.
- tptacek 2y agoI mean, NSA has a directorate for it too, but it's not the agency's chartered purpose.