Opinion: How NSA reorganization could squander remaining trust
The coming reorganization of the National Security Agency may be a smart move for the agency but it'll hurt America's long-term national security interests.
At a recent talk at the Washington think tank听, NSA director Adm. Michael Rogers听said he wanted to听听the agency's听Information Assurance Directorate 鈥� its defensive arm that protects US systems and information 鈥� and the听Signals Intelligence Directorate 鈥� the offensive branch that carries out spying operations.
The reorganization is needed, he said, because with these two separate divisions "we created these two amazing cylinders of excellence and then we built walls of granite between them."
As a veteran of the NSA, I suspect this reorganization will be good for the agency.听But it is unlikely to create an agency that is more open, more trusted, or more able to work with America's听听in the private sector.听
There are significant reasons to believe that what may help the NSA will be bad for the US 鈥� or actually anyone who uses the Internet. 听
The NSA's cyberdefense team, widely seen the best in the US government (and maybe the world), needs to work publicly, openly, and internationally. But听if听further听integrated with NSA's spies, it will be forever compromised.听
The Information Assurance Directorate is respected for its technical skills, but many critics and observers see it as听tainted because of what Edward Snowden 鈥� a former NSA contractor who turned government leaker 鈥� revealed about the agency's signals division.
The clearest example of that tarnish听is evidence that the NSA听听a cryptographic standard, handicapping all of our security for a better chance to breach adversaries. That meant that the needs of the听spies听were prioritized over听those meant to defend the rest of us. And that's something that will likely continue in the reorganized agency.
Who in Silicon Valley or Europe will be able to trust that kind of organization?听
Even with a separate information division, many companies and privacy advocates听were convinced the newly passed 听was simply another vector for passing along data to NSA's digital spies.听With the two parts of the agency more integrated, such concerns will be even harder to dismiss. 听
Likewise, if a multinational company calls NSA now for technical help, as Google and Sony have done in the past, can executives really assure their boardrooms that their corporate data won't end up in a spy's database? 听
, one of 听Rogers's predecessors, specifically kept the听Information Assurance Directorate听separate, as he "needed an organization that was, and was seen to be, committed to defense." 听
The separation within the agency, from this perspective, isn't about creating stovepipes but building a firewall to protect our privacy and the information division's independence.
In fact, the technologists and cyberdefenders in Information Assurance have long needed to be integrated less with secretive the agency's spies, and more with other parts of the government and the private sector. A better option would have been splitting off Information Assurance听as the core of听a truly independent and robust cyber department or agency.
That option is now closed. Once the cards are shuffled into the deck, they will be all but impossible to separate.
Jason Healey is senior research scholar at Columbia University鈥檚 School of International and Public Affairs and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He began his career as a US Air Force signals intelligence officer in Alaska, NSA, and the Pentagon. Follow him on Twitter .
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