Obama Nominates Vice Admiral Michael Rogers New NSA Chief

wiredmikey writes "President Barack Obama has nominated a US Navy officer, Vice Admiral Michael Rogers, to take over as head of the embattled National Security Agency, the Pentagon said Thursday. Rogers, 53, would take the helm at a fraught moment for the spy agency, which is under unprecedented pressure after leaks from ex-intelligence contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of its electronic spying. If confirmed by lawmakers, Rogers would also take over as head of the military's cyber warfare command. Rogers, who trained as an intelligence cryptologist, would succeed General Keith Alexander, who has served in the top job since 2005. He currently heads the US Fleet Cyber Command, overseeing the navy's cyber warfare specialists, and over a 30-year career has worked in cryptology and eavesdropping, or 'signals intelligence.' His confirmation hearings in the Senate are likely to be dominated by the ongoing debate about the NSA's espionage, and whether its sifting through Internet traffic and phone records violates privacy rights and democratic values."

Is it just me...

[cuncator]

... or is anyone else disturbed by the number of military personnel being appointed to civilian posts in the US government recently?

At what point do we just give up and announce that we're ruled by a junta already?

Re:rebranded?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

NSA Reputation Is Dirt

Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 18:30:39 -0500

From: William Allen Simpson
<william.allen.simpson[at]gmail.com>

To: Jerry Leichter <leichter[at]lrw.com>, John Kelsey
<crypto.jmk[at]gmail.com>

Subject: Re: [Cryptography] RSA is dead.

I'm surprised at the sudden interest in my month old December 23 post.

On 1/20/14 2:39 PM, Jerry Leichter wrote:

On Jan 20, 2014, at 12:49 PM, John Kelsey <crypto.jmk[at]gmail.com>
wrote:

Perhaps this is the result of living in a government bubble for awhile, but
I certainly saw and heard a lot of the bigger community who thought NSA's
involvement in domestic crypto standards and companies was intended to improve
security. That's why NSA people were and are openly members of a bunch of
standards committees, why people invited NSA guys to give talks and take
part in competitions, why people were using stuff like SE Linux. People have
been using DSA, the NIST curves, SHA1, and SHA2 for many years, believing
them secure--because the assumption was that NSA wasn't putting backdoored
stuff out there.

Absolutely. And it's not just a matter of living inside the government bubble.

NSA has had a surprisingly good reputation pretty much until Snodownia. Before
their involvement with DES, no one really knew anything about them - but
every interaction I've ever heard of with NSA people left the impression
that they were extremely bright and extremely competent. (A friend who, many
years ago interviewed with both CIA and NSA, thought the interviewers for
the former were a bunch of bumbling idiots, while he was very impressed with
the latter. He never took a govern

Re:Is it just me...

[sourcerror]

Abraham Lincoln was deeply involved in overall strategy and in day-to-day operations during the American Civil War, 1861–1865; historians have given Lincoln high praise for his strategic sense and his ability to select and encourage commanders such as Ulysses S. Grant.[39] ... Harry S. Truman believed in a high amount of civilian leadership of the military, making many tactical and policy decisions based on the recommendations of his advisors— including the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan, to commit American forces in the Korean War, and to terminate Douglas MacArthur from his command.[42]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]