http://www.stripes.com/news/us/several-cyber-security-initiatives-lost-after-snowden-leaks-1.265344
By Ken Dilanian
Tribune Washington Bureau
February 2, 2014
WASHINGTON -- Early last year, as Edward Snowden was secretly purloining
classified documents from National Security Agency computers in Hawaii,
the NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander, was gearing up to sell Congress
and the public on a proposal for the NSA to defend private U.S. computer
networks against cyber attacks.
Alexander wanted to use the NSA’s powerful tools to scan Internet traffic
for malicious software code. He insisted the NSA could kill the viruses
and other digital threats without reading consumers’ private e-mails,
texts and Web searches.
The NSA normally protects military and other national security computer
networks. Alexander also wanted authority to prevent hackers from
penetrating U.S. banks, defense industries, telecommunications systems and
other institutions to crash their networks or to steal intellectual
property worth billions of dollars.
But after Snowden began leaking NSA systems for spying in cyberspace last
June, Alexander’s proposal was a political non-starter, felled by distrust
in his agency’s fearsome surveillance powers in the see-sawing national
debate over privacy and national security.
[...]
--
Subscribe to InfoSec News
http://www.infosecnews.org/subscribe-to-infosec-news/
