{"id":3122,"date":"2025-04-08T05:03:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/08\/dirnsa-fired-html\/"},"modified":"2025-04-08T05:03:32","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T05:03:32","slug":"dirnsa-fired-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/08\/dirnsa-fired-html\/","title":{"rendered":"DIRNSA Fired"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
DIRNSA Fired<\/div>\n

\t

\n
<\/BR>
\n
\n \t

\n
<\/BR><\/p>\n

\n

In \u201cSecrets and Lies<\/a>\u201d (2000), I wrote:<\/p>\n

\n

It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s something a bunch of us were saying at the time, in reference to the vast NSA\u2019s surveillance capabilities.<\/p>\n

I have been thinking of that quote a lot as I read news<\/a> stories<\/a> of<\/a> President Trump firing the Director of the National Security Agency. General Timothy Haugh.<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

We don\u2019t know what pressure the Trump administration is using to make intelligence services fall into line, but it isn\u2019t crazy to worry<\/a> that the NSA might again start monitoring domestic communications.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The NSA already<\/a> spies<\/a> on<\/a> Americans<\/a> in a variety of ways<\/a>. But that\u2019s always been a sideline to its main mission: spying on the rest of the world. Once Trump replaces Haugh with a loyalist, the NSA\u2019s vast surveillance apparatus can be refocused domestically.<\/p>\n

Giving that agency all those powers in the 1990s, in the 2000s after the terrorist attacks of 9\/11, and in the 2010s was always a mistake. I fear that we are about to learn how big a mistake it was.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s PGP creator Phil Zimmerman in 1996, spelling it out<\/a> even more clearly:<\/p>\n

\n

The Clinton Administration seems to be attempting to deploy and entrench a communications infrastructure that would deny the citizenry the ability to protect its privacy. This is unsettling because in a democracy, it is possible for bad people to occasionally get elected\u2014sometimes very bad people. Normally, a well-functioning democracy has ways to remove these people from power. But the wrong technology infrastructure could allow such a future government to watch every move anyone makes to oppose it. It could very well be the last government we ever elect.<\/p>\n

When making public policy decisions about new technologies for the government, I think one should ask oneself which technologies would best strengthen the hand of a police state. Then, do not allow the government to deploy those technologies. This is simply a matter of good civic hygiene.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

\t

\n
<\/BR>
\n Bruce Schneier
\n \t

\n
<\/BR>
\nGo to bruce schneier<\/a>
\n \t

\n
<\/BR><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DIRNSA Fired In \u201cSecrets and Lies\u201d (2000), I wrote: It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state. It\u2019s something a bunch of us were saying at the time, in reference to the vast NSA\u2019s surveillance capabilities. I have been thinking of that quote a lot as I read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,90,935,83,85,1],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-3122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bruce-schneier","category-national-security-policy","category-nsa","category-privacy","category-surveillance","category-uncategorized","tag-bruce-schneier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}