Tech & NSA Main Show SEP 15 2013 Coast To Coast AM

Date:	09-15-13
Host:	George Knapp
Guests:	Karl Shuker, Charles R. Smith

In the first half, specialist in cyber warfare and technology, Charles R. Smith, joined George Knapp to talk about NSA revelations and their affect on society and the tech industry. "There's panic in the halls of Fort Meade at the moment," as the NSA "would prefer to operate in the darkness...away from the light of the public," he remarked. They're trying to apply damage control to the press, and their political allies, as well as put out disinformation about their capabilities in order to muddle the issue, he continued. Established as a secret military agency by the Truman administration, the NSA performed exemplary espionage during the Cold War, he noted.
Yet now, the NSA has become a "bureaucratic behemoth, almost like a dinosaur or Godzilla that has no brain," he commented, "and it will just continue to lumber on," We need to not only pull in the reins, but to dispose of entire missions the NSA has taken on that border on illegality, he suggested. A number of years ago the NSA tried to get legislative approval to install a "back door chip" in tech equipment, Smith recounted. But when that failed in Congress, they instead covertly managed to spread a wide variety of back doors in both software and hardware, including flaws in encryption they could exploit throughout the entire tech industry, according to documents released by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.