We
have two documents here from the Center for Cryptological
History (CCH) of the NSA. Both papers are interesting on several
different levels and are highly recommended for those who wish to be informed about how the NSA works and thinks about its work. Those who
are paranoid about the NSA (possibly with good reason) but don't know
much about it should certainly read these reports to get a more
nuanced view of what is going on.
The
first paper is a report on how the NSA found itself involved in the
ever-beguiling topic of Nazi Gold. In 1997, Congress began an
investigation into this history requesting input from the various law
enforcement and intelligence agencies, but did not ask the NSA for
some reason (one reason could be that the NSA did not come into existence until years after the end of the war). The NSA read about it in the open press and did not
think much about it. But coincidentally an NSA historian happened to
be going through old archives for work on another topic and
discovered to his surprise that the NSA had something to contribute
on this subject. Apparently a predecessor organization to the NSA
had in fact captured and decrypted discussions between the Swiss
delegation on the topic when negotiating with the United States.
This started a process whereby the NSA internally decided to bring
this document to the attention of the Congressional committee even
though they had not asked.
The
second paper is a discussion, formerly classified Top Secret Umbra,
about the impact of Watergate and the release of Enigma decryption
efforts of WW 2 had on their operations. It is particularly
interesting because it goes over in modest detail some of the
problems that occur when intelligence collected for national security
purposes is repurposed for domestic law enforcement. This is a very
important problem and one that has the chance of vindicating one
small part of the Snowden revelations (even though I believe that
most of the Snowden revelations have nothing to do with the violation
of American civil rights and were released for other purposes). It
is therefore important for anyone who is concerned on these issues to
become aware of some of the history of this dilemma which this report
describes.
In
particular the report discusses what happened when the Reagan
Administration requested NSA to cooperate with FBI in using SIGINT
for domestic law enforcement and what the NSA thought and did about
it. Those who believe that the NSA gladly violates the
Constitutional rights of Americans will be reassured to know that by
no means is the NSA cavalier about these issues. Those who are
concerned about whether their Constitutional rights to privacy might
be compromised by a future or current Administration have every
reason to be concerned.
You will note that both of these documents are archived on the
internet site cryptome.org. Cryptome is a well known entity in the
area of Internet privacy and government secrecy. Run by John Young
and Deborah Natsios in the upper west side of NYC, they maintain an
online repository of many of the government documents that have been
released and those that have been leaked and include many items of
relevant commentary by individuals, groups and news sources.
Although the politics of Mr. Young and Ms. Natsios are far to the
left and I certainly do not agree with them on many issues, I have
found Cryptome to be a useful and reliable web site and worth
checking out on a regular basis.
But can we really believe the content of these papers? Even now the US Government hides the facts of our use of Nazi Gold to finance the reverse engineering of the Nazi anti-gravity drive. And what about the Nazi bases at the Polar regions? Sadly, no mention. We must conclude that these papers were released to deflect attention from the truth.
NSA
Paper on Cryptology and the Watergate Era
NSA
Paper on Nazi Gold
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