In the coming weeks, Congress and the civilian defense leadership will have to ask a lot of questions about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, and how to reconcile them with privacy concerns. But they will also have to ask a more basic set of questions: Why on earth wasn’t the NSA prepared for this? Why didn’t the intelligence agency’s leadership have a plan to deal with the global outcry that would follow the leak of classified Internet surveillance programs?
Contingency planning is a critical part of every military operation, and is even more important for secret or covert activities. The Central Intelligence Agency and Special Forces Command examined every possible thing that could go wrong on the raid to kill Osama bin Laden, for example, and had clear plans to deal with any ensuing fallout. Although it has an intelligence mandate, the NSA is a Defense Department organization, and the director of NSA is a 4-star general. As such, it is troubling that the NSA appears to have no plan in place for how to respond once its spying program was made public and plastered on the front pages around the world. Instead, the best defense General Alexander could offer a room full of security professionals at the Black Hat convention, almost two months after the leak, was an explanation of FISA courts and the successful prosecution of a San Diego cab driver who sent money to a Somali militia.
The NSA leadership had ample warning signs that leaks were possible, and that public reaction in the U.S. and around the world would be overwhelmingly negative….
Arrogance is how it happened. The national government has become so sure of it’s supreme and all embracing power that it can’t see the little things, or the little people.
Two answers:
1) Federal agencies are accountable to the president. There’s currently no accountability as the fellow in the White House continually gets a pass by the press. Even in this scandal there is no connection to the person with the ultimate responsibility. Either the massive expansion of recording electronic data was approved by the president or his incompetence allowed it to occur.
2) Treason or Patriot depends on your point of view. My fellow Libertarians applaud his efforts. His whistle blowing demonstrates liberty is not completely dead in the US. OTOH, my friends who work for NSA are angry at him for his betrayal as well as the powerful negative spotlight it puts on their work.
3) See step one above. The press is hopeless right now and will not likely explore where the buck stops.
Well, that was three. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. 🙂