Obama Picks A Cyber Expert To Lead N.S.A.
Source: NYTIMES
In nominating Vice Adm. Michael S. Rogers as the new director of the National Security Agency on Thursday, President Obama chose a recognized expert in the new art of designing cyberweapons, but someone with no public track record in addressing the kinds of privacy concerns that have put the agency under a harsh spotlight.
Mr. Obama’s decision to pick a military officer — rather than someone versed in the privacy issues raised by the N.S.A.’s bulk collection of “metadata” about the phone calls, emails and online searches of ordinary Americans — was made several weeks ago, when he rejected the advice of his own advisory panel that recommended that the N.S.A. and the United States Cyber Command have separate leaders. By law the command, the Pentagon’s 4-year-old cyberwarfare organization, must be headed by a military officer.
The result is that Admiral Rogers, now the head of Fleet Cyber Command, the Navy’s fast-growing cyberunit, will find himself in the public cross hairs in a way he has never been during a 33-year military career. Starting with his confirmation hearings, expected to begin as soon as next month, the admiral will be pressed on how he would implement a series of reforms that Mr. Obama announced two weeks ago.
But many of the biggest issues, including who will hold the vast database of phone call information that the N.S.A. searches as it seeks potential terrorists or nuclear proliferators, remain undecided. And Mr. Obama has deferred decisions on recommendations, also from advisers, that the N.S.A. stop its efforts to weaken commercial encryption and limit its activities to exploiting weaknesses in commonly available software to design cyberweapons.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/world/vice-admiral-to-be-named-nsa-director.html
Admiral Rogers will succeed Gen. Keith B. Alexander, who has served as N.S.A. director for nearly nine years and was the first to direct both the civilian spy agency and the Cyber Command. He announced last year that he would retire in March.
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I really could use some face recognition software on my computer though to confirm
