[Infowarrior] - NSA Should Oversee Cybersecurity, Intel Chief Says

[Richard Forno]

NSA Should Oversee Cybersecurity, Intel Chief Says
By Kim Zetter EmailFebruary 26, 2009 | 2:55:06 PMCategories:  
Cybersecurity

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/nsa-should-over.html

Despite the fact that many Americans distrust the National Security  
Agency for its role in the Bush Administration's warrantless  
wiretapping program, the agency should be entrusted with securing the  
nation's telecommunications networks and other cyber infrastructures,  
President Obama's director of national intelligence told Congress on  
Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair told the House  
intelligence committee (.pdf) that the NSA, rather than the Department  
of Homeland Security which currently oversees cybersecurity, has the  
smarts and the skills to secure cyberspace.

"The National Security Agency has the greatest repository of cyber  
talent," Blair said. "[T]here are some wizards out there at Fort Meade  
who can do stuff."

Blair added that "because of the offensive mission that they have,  
they’re the ones who know best about what’s coming back at us and it’s  
defenses against those sorts of things that we need to be able to  
build into wider and wider circles."

He acknowledged that the agency had a trust handicap to overcome due  
to its role in the Bush Administration's secret domestic spying  
program, and therefore asked Congress to help convince the public that  
it's the right agency for the task.

"I think there is a great deal of distrust of the National Security  
Agency and the intelligence community in general playing a role  
outside of the very narrowly circumscribed role because of some of the  
history of the FISA issue in years past. . . . So I would like the  
help of people like you who have studied this closely and served on  
commissions, the leadership of the committee and finding a way that  
the American people will have confidence in the supervision, in the  
oversight of the role of NSA so that it can help protect these wider  
bodies. So, to me, that’s one of the keys things that we have to work  
on here in the next few months."

Blair is not without support for his view. Paul Kurtz, who led the  
cybersecurity group on Obama's transition team and was part of Bush's  
White House National Security Council, recently told Forbes that he  
supports the NSA taking a prominent role in cybersecurity.

The "NSA has the vast majority of expertise in information assurance  
inside the U.S. government," Kurtz said. "We have to tap that  
expertise while respecting privacy and civil liberties. I believe NSA  
can play a key role with proper oversight."

Obama recently tasked Melissa Hathaway, cybercoordination executive  
for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to conduct a  
60-day review of Bush's Comprehensive National Cyber Security  
Initiative, a secretive, $30 billion, multi-year plan to address  
cybersecurity issues.

Hathaway, a former management consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton,  
helped develop the classified plan, which many people have criticized  
for being too secretive, and has since been overseeing its  
implementation. She is also being touted as the likely candidate to  
assume the permanent role of cybersecurity czar when Obama fills the  
position -- a job that will likely be elevated to a presidential  
advisory position.