National Security Agency news stories on Newser

New NSA Spy Center Will Target Every Email and Phone Call

Neal Colgrass — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 16:16:33 CDT

Looks like Congress can't stop the NSA from monitoring every nook and cranny of our lives after all. In an explosive feature in Wired , James Bamford reveals that the National Security Agency has revived a program called "Total Information Awareness," which aims to collect and sift through every electronic communication...

Obama, NSA Spar on Cyber-Spying

Kevin Spak — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:29:05 CST

The White House and the National Security Agency have repeatedly clashed over the NSA's efforts to fight cyberattacks, with the Obama administration arguing that they would impinge on Americans' privacy, the Washington Post reports. The most dramatic confrontation was over legislation proposed last year that would have forced Internet companies...

Anonymous Could Shutter Power Grid: NSA Honcho

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:39:51 CST

Hacking collective Anonymous has taken on the FBI and the CIA , among others—and soon the group could be making its presence known in your living room. The National Security Agency director warns that within the next one to two years, Anonymous could launch a cyberattack that results in a...

NSA: Hey Kids! Spy on Your Family!

Mary Papenfuss — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:46:51 CDT

New CryptoKids cartoons created by the National Security Agency urge wanna-be baby spies to make and break codes, pick up languages for easy eavesdropping, and oh, hey, monitor family computers so they know exactly what everyone in the house is doing. The character Decipher Dog discusses his "favorite project" linking...

Pentagon Workers Accused of Downloading Child Porn

Kevin Spak — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:24:42 CDT

Several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances have allegedly been caught buying or downloading child pornography. Federal investigators identified alleged perverts everywhere from the NSA to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and some of them even used their work computers to download the material, the Boston...

Ex-NSA Exec Indicted Over Leaks to Media

Kevin Spak — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:08:42 CDT

A former National Security Agency executive has been indicted on 10 felony charges for allegedly leaking classified details of the Bush administration’s intelligence policies to a national newspaper. The indictment alleges that Thomas Drake, a former big shot in the agency’s Signals Intelligence Directorate, sent hundreds of emails to a...

Google Teams With NSA to Fight Cyberattacks

Jane Yager — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:47:32 CST

Shaken by recent large-scale hacking of its systems, Google is enlisting the National Security Agency in a deal that highlights the growing dilemma of balancing privacy concerns with national security interests. The agreement, the first of its kind between a government agency and an Internet search company, will see the...

Plan Could Divine Missing Watergate Minutes, CSI-Style

Matt Cantor — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:08:50 CDT

A Watergate hobbyist has a plan to discover what was discussed during the 18½ minutes erased from a taped conversation between President Nixon and his chief of staff after the break-in. Phil Mellinger doesn’t want to examine the tape itself; that's been done without success. He says the answer lies...

Pentagon's Cybercommand Raises Privacy Fears

Rob Quinn — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:04:16 CDT

Plans to put America's cybersecurity under the control of the Pentagon are raising some thorny privacy and diplomacy issues, the New York Times reports. President Obama has insisted that the military, under the cybercommand being developed, will not be monitoring private sector networks and Internet traffic—but Pentagon officials say...