Several cyber security initiatives lost after Snowden's NSA leaks

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-snowden-cyber-20140202,0,5845248.story



Experts say several cyber security initiatives have been halted by Snowden's leaks of NSA data, leaving the U.S. more vulnerable.

Several cyber security initiatives lost after Snowden's NSA leaks
By Ken Dilanian
February 1, 2014, 6:51 p.m.

WASHINGTON — Early last year, as Edward Snowden was preparing to disclose classified documents he had purloined from National Security Agency computers in Hawaii, the NSA director, Gen. Keith Alexander, was gearing up to sell Congress and the public on a proposal for the NSA to defend private U.S. computer networks against cyber attacks.

Alexander wanted to use the NSA's powerful tools to scan Internet traffic for malicious software code. He said the NSA could kill the viruses and other digital threats without reading consumers' private emails, texts and Web searches.

The NSA normally protects military and other national security computer networks. Alexander also wanted authority to prevent hackers from penetrating U.S. banks, defense industries, telecommunications systems and other institutions to crash their networks or to steal intellectual property worth billions of dollars.

But after Snowden, a contractor, began leaking NSA systems for spying in cyberspace that went public in June, Alexander's proposal was a political nonstarter, felled by distrust of his agency's fearsome surveillance powers in the seesawing national debate over privacy and national security.