New N.S.A. Chief Calls Damage From Snowden Leaks Manageable

Looks like the republic will withstand the bit of light Snowden shined on our intelligence dragnet on US citizens. So says the new NSA director.

I wonder if the discussion here might have been different throughout this saga if Gen. Alexander had maintained the same rational tone.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/sky-isnt-falling-after-snowden-nsa-chief-says.html

FORT MEADE, Md. — The newly installed director of the National Security Agency says that while he has seen some terrorist groups alter their communications to avoid surveillance techniques revealed by Edward J. Snowden, the damage done over all by a year of revelations does not lead him to the conclusion that “the sky is falling.”

(snip)

“Am I ever going to sit here and say as the director that with 100 percent certainty no one can compromise our systems from the inside?” he asked. “Nope. Because I don’t believe that in the long run.”

The crucial change, he said, is to “ensure that the volume” of data taken by Mr. Snowden, a former agency contractor, “can’t be stolen again.” But the Defense Department, of which the security agency and Cyber Command are a part, made the same vow in 2010 after an Army private, Chelsea Manning, downloaded hundreds of thousands of secret State Department and Pentagon files and released them to WikiLeaks.

Notable in his comments was an absence of alarm about the long-term effects of the Snowden revelations. Like former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, who urged colleagues in the Obama administration to calm down about the WikiLeaks revelations in 2010, Admiral Rogers seemed to suggest that, as technology progressed, the agency would find new ways to compensate for the damage done, however regrettable the leaks.

(snip)

His tone was in contrast to that of some politicians and intelligence professionals, including his immediate predecessor, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, who described in stark terms the risks to American and allied national security from the revelations, calling it “the greatest damage to our combined nations’ intelligence systems that we have ever suffered.”