The James Clapper Plan to “Change” NSA by Keeping John Inglis in Charge
Yesterday, Ellen Nakashima reported that James Clapper supports splitting CyberCommand off of NSA. To understand whether this would represent real change or not, consider that they’re considering John Inglis — currently Keith Alexander’s Deputy — to lead NSA.
At a White House meeting of senior national security officials last week, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said he was in favor of ending the current policy of having one official in charge of both the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, said the individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Also, officials appear inclined to install a civilian as director of the NSA for the first time in the agency’s 61-year history. Among those said to be potential successors to the current director, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, is his deputy, John C. “Chris” Inglis.
Frankly, I think splitting off Cyber is the wrong solution in any case. The problem, as I see it, is that both the cyberoffensive and the information collecting missions favor a policy of creating vulnerabilities that both US hackers and collectors can exploit in the future. That leaves the third NSA mission — protecting US networks — stuck with an approach of finding those entities that are exploiting vulnerabilities, rather than working on a resilience strategy that not only might work better, but also would provide Americans greater privacy. I think splitting off the defensive side, potentially creating a champion for real security, would do more than splitting off Cyber, which probably only leaves two competing champions for creating and exploiting vulnerabilities.
In any case, though, if John Inglis is in charge of one of those champions of creating vulnerabilities, chances are negligible the NSA will change its approach.
By most accounts, if Gen. Alexander goes and Inglis stays, nothing else makes much difference. Policy and procedure will not change.
Inglis as DIRNSA puts the rumblings about a civilian head in context. He needs to go right along with his boss and soul mate.
Promotion from operating head to director trashes the principle of having a career deputy to provide continuity while ensuring that periodically there is a fresh set of eyes at the top. He would be Alexander’s third, and possibly forth tours. Shades of Hoover.
It is the equivalent of putting Summers in as Chairman of the Fed. How many national catastrophes should one man be permitted to precipitate?
@lefty665: quote:”It is the equivalent of putting Summers in as Chairman of the Fed. How many national catastrophes should one man be permitted to create?”unquote
Permitted??? While I appreciate the observation, in reality, none of these scumbags are “permitted”. After all, what do you think the authors of the Magna Carta tried to capture.
Permitted as in “placed in a position of authority that enables him to do pretty much any damn fool thing he wants”. Summers is not likely to be able to do as much damage as he could have had he been granted permission to exercise the authority of Fed chair. But, that’s secondary to to the point I was trying to make. Sorry to distract from that.
From his years of making it work, Inglis as career deputy director has the institutional knowledge of what makes NSA tick. If you combine that with authority as director, it is even scarier than what we’ve had since 9/11. Those roles and functions have been separated since 1952, and for good reason.
There are things that need to be changed at NSA, but internal controls and separation of functions ain’t among them.
NEWS FLASH!!
Given today NYC has given it’s citizens notice to SURRENDER THEIR WEAPONS..everything else is moot. Fuck the NSA, and fuck the collectivists.
The Law of Unintended Consequences just took effect.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/28/nyc-alarms-notice-immediately-surrender-your-rifle/
If I were you..I’d start making preps. As the Law of 3s are about to become real.
3minutes without air, you’re dead, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food, you’re dead. Now, consider this, Chicago has 3 days of food on the shelf. The pipeline getting food there has 7 days worth. meaning basically in 10 day, 10 million people are going to get real hungry.
comprende?
@bloodypitchfork:
3 minutes without bullshit is all the internet can deliver.