... if there's a difference any more. What an almighty mess.
*This is a fabulous credit to the ability of the Internet to dissolve institutional silos. Cops become spies, spies become Raytheon, Raytheon somehow becomes the Perfect Citizen.
*And what do you, the citizen, become? Cyberwar cannon fodder for keyboard-punching apparatchiks that you'll never see.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/07/nsa-perfect-citizen.php
(...)
"A power struggle has been brewing over who should be in charge of national cybersecurity: the NSA, the Department of Homeland Security, the military, or the private sector.
"The Lieberman-Collins bill would put the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the White House and DHS, establishing new cybersecurity organizations in both and requiring private enterprises to take orders from the federal government in the event of a "national cyber emergency."
However, security expert Bruce Schneier notes that DHS has been "getting hammered" in Senate Homeland Security Committee hearings and that the NSA has been consolidating its power. "Perfect Citizen" would appear to be a major power grab by the agency.
Schneier, writing last year about the intra-agency cybersecurity power struggle wrote "Putting national cybersecurity in the hands of the NSA is an incredibly bad idea." Schneier points out that the NSA's surveillance function would a conflict of interest with a security function. However, in appears "Perfect Citizen" is primarily a surveillance project...."
(((I hate to say this, but I think I'm backing the Air Force. They're the only ones who seem to be making new mistakes.)))
(((Besides which: in a world of killer drones, why do Air Force pilots exist? Shouldn't they be given new duty-assignments more suited to a modern, common defense?)))
