Review of History Channel's NSA documentary
Declan McCullagh
declan at well.com
Tue Jan 9 08:40:50 PST 2001
[The documentary aired again twice this morning on the History Channel, and
it's a fair bet it'll show again later this week. --Declan
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41063,00.html
History Looks at the NSA
by Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
2:00 a.m. Jan. 9, 2001 PST
WASHINGTON -- As anyone who watched Enemy of the State knows, the
National Security Agency is a rapacious beast with an appetite for
data surpassed only by its disregard for Americans' privacy.
Or is the opposite true, and the ex-No Such Agency staffed by ardent
civil libertarians?
To the NSA, of course, its devilish reputation is merely an
unfortunate Hollywood fiction. Its director, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden,
has taken every opportunity to say so, most recently on a History
Channel documentary that aired for the first time Monday evening.
"It's absolutely critical that (Americans) don't fear the power that
we have," Hayden said on the show.
He dismissed concerns about eavesdropping over-eagerness and all but
said the NSA, far from being one of the most feared agencies, has
become one of the most handicapped.
One reason, long cited by agency officials: Encryption. The show's
producers obligingly included stock footage of Saddam Hussein, saying
that the dictator-for-life has been spotted chatting on a 900-channel
encrypted cell phone.
That's no surprise. The NSA, as Steven Levy documents in his new
Crypto book (which the documentary overlooks), has spent the last 30
years trying to suppress data-scrambling technology through export
regulations, court battles, and even personal threats.
Instead of exploring that controversial and timely subject that's tied
to the ongoing debate over privacy online, "America's Most Secret
Agency" instead spends the bulk of an hour on a history of
cryptography starting in World War II. Most of the documentary could
have aired two decades ago, and no critics are interviewed.
One of the few surprises in the otherwise bland show is the NSA's new
raison d'etre -- infowar.
[...]
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