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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 'What big ears..'
By Thomas Gorguissian
The computer systems of the National Security Agency (NSA) crashed at 7pm on Monday 24 January. A blackout thwarted the top-secret US agency's ability to process intelligence data collected by US satellites for almost four days. ABC news, which first reported this computer glitch, described the problem as the worst in NSA's history. NSA is the biggest US spy agency and is specialised in electronic intelligence gathering from all over the world through satellites, telephone interception and other means.
This problem, which was confined to NSA headquarters complex at Fort Meade, Maryland, did not affect intelligence collection, but did "affect the processing of intelligence information," a statement released by the agency last Saturday said. "The backlog of intelligence processing is almost complete, and the NSA is confident that no significant intelligence information has been lost."
The agency stated it took thousands of man-hours and some $1.5 million to get the computers up and running again. The computer shutdown did not appear to be sabotaged, officials said. And it was not caused by any Y2K-related issue. It was triggered off by a system overload. The Washington Post quoted one official who described the problem as a "software anomaly". The official said, "As of now, there is no evidence other than this was a system stressed to meet day-to-day operational pressures."
This incident took place just a few weeks after a failure experienced by the Defence Department. On New Year's Eve, apparently as a result of a Y2K glitch, a computer system that processes imagery of intelligence satellites broke down. The interruption lasted for two to three hours. The Pentagon stated at the time that the problem did not jeopardise US national security. Except for a reconnaissance satellite, "nothing had any operational implication," Deputy Secretary of Defence John Hamre announced on 14 January, saying that the problem was not with the satellite itself, but on the ground in a processing station. He emphasised that within several hours a back-up system was in place and operational.
Last autumn, the US government announced that a Navy code expert had been charged as "a spy"; five years ago, while working at the NSA, he passed secrets to Russia. This was considered one of the agency's failures, usually kept under wraps.
Another incident broke the silence about the nature of the business or interference that is or could be done by this top-secret agency when, last September, a Canadian cryptographer, Andrew Fernandes, claimed the presence of an element labelled "NSAkey" in Microsoft's Windows operating system. This component was considered among Internet groups as "a Trojan horse" and "a secret backdoor" to allow the US government to look into and monitor others' computers.
The NSA, a Defence Department agency created in 1952 and staffed with 38,000 employees, "coordinates, directs and performs highly specialised activities to protect US information systems and produce foreign intelligence information," as the agency officially describes its role. The NSA, known around Washington as "No Such Agency" or "never say anything", produces almost 80 per cent of the intelligence the United States uses, according to James Bamford, author of The Puzzle Palace. This book, published in 1982, is considered a classic study of the agency.
The ultra-secret agency had been insulated and protected for decades from public scrutiny. But it seems that the isolation of "America's premier eavesdropper and code-broker" is coming to an end. Some critics see the NSA, after the Cold War, as "a Big Brother without a cause."
New technologies threaten to make this spy agency's big ears deaf. Last November, Democratic Congressman Sanford Bishop said on the floor of the House of Representatives, "The nation cannot navigate with an impaired sense of hearing." Some observers see that frequently changing communication technologies and the vast spread of e-mail and cellular phones, in addition to expansion of computer incryption, have somehow "crippled" the NSA. As John Milis, staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intellegence, described the situation: "In the last four or five years, technology has moved from being the friend to being the enemy [of this agency]."
The agency, which is bigger in size and more secretive than the Central Intellegence Agency (CIA), has in recent years been criticised by both the press and citizens' groups over the legality of its intelligence activities and the possible surveillance of US citizens through their Internet communications. A privacy advocacy group, the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC), filed a lawsuit late last year seeking public disclosure of internal documents of the agency and to see if the NSA was involved in domestic intelligence gathering. The agency charter does not authorise such activities, pointed out Marc Rotenberg, director of EPIC.
A new report prepared for the European Parliament about Echelon, written by the researcher Duncan Campbell, is going to be debated this month. The British daily, The Independent, last week disclosed some of the contents of the report. The report says that all forms of communications around the world, from satellites to the Internet, are being monitored by the United States and Britain. There are more than 120 satellite-based systems working to gather intelligence. As for the Internet, the report mentioned that most of the global "Internet capacity" is in the United States or passes through it, so "communications from Europe to and from Asia, Oceania, Africa or South America normally travel via the US." The discussions in Brussels will also include the concerns expressed by many about the threats of such a "Big Brother" to civil liberties, in addition to what was mentioned about economic espionage as part of this global monitoring. Last Thursday night, while US President Bill Clinton was giving his State of the Union address -- in which he reaffirmed his commitment to protect America's computer networks from Siberia attack -- technicians at the NSA headquarters, not far from Washington, were trying to fix the "computer crash" that started Monday evening. Whether it is "too much information" to process or "too much global engagement" to handle, the NSA's resources, roles and management are under review now both in the agency itself and among lawmakers.
