Landau explains the National Security Agency’s little-known function of providing communications security (COMSEC) to private companies, which has involved an improvement of security and privacy of the domestic communications infrastructure. She examines the history of the program and how the NSA’s behavior towards the private sector has shifted since the 1950’s, as well as the rationale behind these radical changes. Ultimately, Landau argues that providing national security tools to the private sector is outside the mission of the NSA and should be done by an entity more in sync with the private sector and international community.
Tag Archives: Privacy
Cybersecurity and Freedom on the Internet
Cybersecurity has become a national imperative and a government priority. Increased cybersecurity will help protect consumers and businesses, ensure the availability of critical infrastructures on which our economy depends, and strengthen national security. However, cybersecurity efforts must be carefully tailored in order to preserve privacy, liberty, innovation, and the open nature of the Internet.2 To design an effective and balanced cybersecurity strategy, each part of the country’s critical infrastructure3 must be considered separately. Solutions that may be appropriate for the power grid or financial networks may not be suitable for securing the public portions of the Internet that constitute the very architecture for free speech essential to our democracy. Policy toward government systems can be much more prescriptive than policy toward private systems. The characteristics that have made the Internet such a success – its openness, its decentralized and user-controlled nature, and its support for innovation and free expression – may be put at risk if heavy-handed policies are enacted…