[dave at farber.net: [IP] more on AP Story Justice Dept. Probing Domestic Spyin

[John Young]

It is likely that the threat of the Internet is what led NSA to broaden
its spying program, and what remains to be reported by the media.

Recall that Hayden was belly-aching about his threat during the
time leading up to 9/11, and the NSA Transition 2001 report to Bush
released by the National Security Archive on Friday states that
the Internet is the big threat, and that there was a need for
constant monitoring of the Net.

NSA was doing that well before 9/11 but was not admitting it,
not in public. Nor was it admitting the cooperation of the ISPs in
this effort.

Got to consider the AES initiative was a cooptation of the crypto
terrorists after GAK failed, or appeared to have failed: there were
a number of firms who jumped at the chance to build-in access,
using a slew of hoary arguments about lost passwords, disloyal
employees, corporate responsibility to control keys. 

And public key crypto has an odor that needs to be cleared of
NDA suspicion or abandoned as if Crypto AG.