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Read "The Puzzle Palace" and find out why the NSA is structured like it is. The US gov has been re-orging the NSA and factions inside the gov have been fighting over its control since its inception. To use an annoyingly beat to death phrase: we haven't seen its final form yet.

Actually a pretty good article overall, but these two lines bother me greatly:

   > "What was supposed to be a single agency with a dual mission—protecting the security of U.S. communications and eavesdropping on the communications of our enemies"
That was never the mission and is not the mission of any similar org in the past 100+ years. It is to eavesdrop on everyone, including ones allies. The Brits were eavesdropping on everyone's telegrams over 100 years ago. This isn't something new.

   > "The result is an agency that prioritizes intelligence gathering over security"
Again, that is the #1 goal of the NSA and other similar organizations. Security never has and never will be its #1 goal.


Technically, you are wrong. NSA has a signals intelligence side and an information assurance side. It does have two dual missions. You may argue that they haven't done a good job with the information assurance side of their mission, but you cannot argue that it is not a stated mission of the NSA.


Security is their objective; using all encompassing communication spying is their strategy for accomplishing that objective.

This comment is not an endorsement of any NSA policies.


Security, in terms of the NSA, refers to their COMSEC work.


Never mind that "security" is literally their middle name--the second L of their TLA.

It wouldn't be the first time that a government enterprise had a misleading name.


Exactly. They have as much to do with "security" as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has to do with "democracy."




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