Editor,
President Obama’s speech responding to mounting public concern over domestic spying was disappointing. What was erroneously billed as reforms was essentially window dressing, cosmetic changes which do little to allay fears of the massive invasion of privacy.
Bowing to pressure from the NSA, President Obama endorsed its actions and punted the custodian issue to a largely dysfunctional Congress. Billions of tax dollars have been squirreled away by the NSA in creating a huge database of largely redundant data which makes us less safe as a nation. The NSA continues to download every dial, tweet and text message of innocent Americans and maintains a tight grip on the world’s digital pipelines. It paid millions of dollars to RSA, a major encryption firm, to incorporate a deliberately weakened algorithm into some of its products, giving the government a “back door” to capture whatever it wanted. Encryption standards used to protect banking, and all other electronic transactions have been pierced which dramatically increases the potential for abuse.
So what’s next? Those with deep pockets will be able to pay hefty fees to the spy agency for confidential information, rendering insider trading obsolete. The giant Internet companies who were paid millions of access fees are now crying foul because they are losing billions of dollars in overseas business. As Dan Kaminsky, a security researcher and chief scientist at White Ops, an antifraud company recently stated, “when your products have been intentionally flawed in the support of intelligence missions, don’t expect people to buy them.”
Jagjit Singh
Los Altos
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
Only subscribers can view and post comments on articles.
Already a subscriber? Login Here
Sorry, an error occurred.
Already Subscribed!
Cancel anytime
Thank you .
Your account has been registered, and you are now logged in.
Check your email for details.
Submitting this form below will send a message to your email with a link to change your password.
An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed on your account.
No promotional rates found.
Secure & Encrypted
Thank you.
Your gift purchase was successful! Your purchase was successful, and you are now logged in.
| Rate: | |
| Begins: | |
| Transaction ID: |
A receipt was sent to your email.
(0) comments
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.