Defense Tech: SIGINT's Clean Sweep? (Updated)


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Edited by Christian Lowe \| Contact

SIGINT's Clean Sweep? (Updated)

When Gen. Michael Hayden, the former NSA director, was nominated to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a few folks were worried. The CIA was supposed to be in charge of informant and spies -- human intelligence, or HUMINT. The NSA was a signals intelligence, or SIGINT, shop. Could the CIA really trust someone like Hayden, who specialized in technical snooping?

At the time, it seemed like a minor point. Hayden, after all, had a HUMINT background, too. And his resume wasn't really the issue; his authorizing of warantless wiretaps loomed much larger.

But the SIGINT/HUMINT divide is bound to come up again, now that Hayden's boss, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, is getting ready to skedaddle. Because Negroponte's likely replacement is Admiral Mike McConnell, another former NSA director. Another SIGINT guy.

Now, since 9/11, just about everyone in the intelligence field has talked about how crummy our network of flesh-and-blood informants is. Can a certified geek like McConnell fix that? Or is this one more acknowledgment of the triumph of technical intelligence -- and the decline of human snoops?

UPDATE 5:59 PM: Speaking of spying, let's hope the Daily News somehow got this story wrong. Because if George Bush really just granted the government, by executive fiat, the power to read our mail without a warrant, it violates every notion of privacy and due process under the law we've built up over the last 230 years in this country.

UPDATE 01/05/06 11:36 PM: "John D. Negroponte's exit from the nation's top spy post after just 19 months will temporarily stall reform efforts for the nation's 16 intelligence agencies and sow further instability," Siobhan Gorman reports in today's Baltimore Sun.

The departure leaves Negroponte's likely successor, retired Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell, with little time to put the fledgling office on solid footing before the next White House turnover, tlawmakers and intelligence officials said.

The leadership change in the Director of National Intelligence office is compounded by the absence of a deputy to replace Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who left the job as second-in-command last spring to head the CIA.

Comments

Sri lanka

Posted by: dehi at June 27, 2008 06:12 AM

Declaired War has priorites different from the present state.

waco bill

Posted by: waco bill at July 5, 2007 12:32 PM

You mail opening post section is such a total sack of rotten cabbage that you should be ashamed of having posted it.

Historically in wartimes mail has be censored, and opened at will.

It is such a stupid straw man. With the literally thousands of tons of mail every year processed in this country, who do you think is going to open and examine all that mail.

This is clearly designed to allow reaction to an emerging threat that waiting for a warrant may let the timer expire in a package or crate.

Your wife my be interested in your love letters to your linebacker friend from college , but I am sure GWB has more important issues to worry about.

That is just satire to show the stupidity of your position. Get over it.

There are millions of people communicating in hundreds of ways each day on this earth, and at best we may have 70,000 bodies assisted by computers to try to filter out the most important.

Oh next week my new assignment is warrant less pantie checks of females on the streets of new york.

Posted by: dutydork at January 6, 2007 04:09 PM

Not sure if everyone has seen these videos of the US military in Iraq or not, but they are pretty amazing: Hopefully our 'surge' will not include too many of these types...
http://minor-ripper.blogspot.com/2006/12/winning-hearts-and-minds-part-three.html

Posted by: MinorRipper at January 4, 2007 09:51 PM

Echelon is correct...that spy program hooked into every single communication satellite relay, fiber optics...virtually every single communication medium.

I believe the program was initiated during the cold war, but it morphed into a terrorist activity spotter after the Cole and the 93 WTC bombing and stuff.

Posted by: David at January 4, 2007 08:08 PM

What was the name of that massive NSA project that was to scan all the emails in the world that it could get its paws on and flag those its algorithms deemed suspicious? Echelon? Something like along those lines. And under what administration was that? It wasn't GWB. Yet, you couldn't have thought it that egregious an infringement since you campaigned for that same administration. We weren't even at war then. Why the change of heart?

Posted by: rutty at January 4, 2007 07:35 PM

After pearl harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the interception of all communications in and out of the United States. Lincoln intercepted telegraph communications without a warrant. You make the mistake of thinking that recent history is the norm and extrapolate it back 230 years.

Posted by: Ryan at January 4, 2007 07:23 PM

SIGINT's Clean Sweep? (Updated)

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