NSA & Snowden

The National Security Agency (NSA) is home to America’s code-makers and code-breakers. It is their job to gather signals intelligence (SIGINT) in order to gain a decision making advantage for the U.S. and our allies under all circumstances.

So what’s all the controversy about? From media reports, the National Security Agency has;

     “…collected millions of phone records from accounts in the United States along with signals intelligence from U.S. companies on the internet activity of overseas residents.”

And? The NSA gets to listen in, I don’t have a problem with that. Requesting and collecting intelligence is what the Agency is supposed to do. It isn’t hacking into these companies then data strip mining them.

Not that I know of anyway.

If they are just being nice by asking after the fact then hey, great job, keep up the good work. Either way the NSA is not gathering all this intelligence then posting up fun facts about random people on their twitter feed.

And a federal agency tracking my internet activity doesn’t really concern me either. I’ve been cleaning cookies out of my PC that do the exact same thing since windows 95. Nothing new there and it is kind of nice to know who’s collecting them for a change. I’ll type a thank you NSA email this evening and send it to myself.

I’m sure they’ll get it.

I’m much more concerned with banks and public corporations that keep getting hacked while losing personal information to criminals affecting millions of people at a time. The NSA has credibility in excess. Google can’t even operate my youtube channel correctly. Between the two I know who I’m more comfortable with compiling meta-data on my internet usage and personal information.

On the whole I don’t see anything wrong with the NSA or its actions. What I do see as being wrong is calling Snowden a whistle blower.

The guy didn’t send evidence to his Congressman then hide in the hills waiting on word from his lawyer. He infiltrated our government with the intention of stealing secrets and making them public.

That is espionage.

Last reports put the guy in Russia while he seeks somewhere that will grant him asylum. Presumably to then await book deals and highest bids on movie rights.

I wonder if we have anyone the Israelis might want in trade. You know, just in case he happens to show up in their custody sometime.

Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

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The West Report

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