The Troubled Inheritance: The National Security Agency and the Obama Administration

2010 ◽  
pp. 241-256
Author(s):  
Matthew M. Aid
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Coordinator ◽  
Signals Intelligence

This article discusses the National Security Agency under the Obama Administration. Upon his inauguration on January 20, 2009, Obama inherited from the Bush administration an intelligence community embroiled in political controversies. Of the sixteen agencies of the intelligence community, the National Security Agency (NSA) faced the greatest scrutiny from the new Obama administration and the Congress. NSA was the largest and the most powerful member of the U.S. intelligence community. Since its formation in 1952, NSA has managed and directed all U.S. government signals intelligence (SIGINT) collection. It is the collector and processor of communications intelligence (COMINT) and the primary processor of foreign instrumentation signals intelligence (FISINT). And since 1958, NSA has been the coordinator of the U.S. government's national electronics intelligence (ELINT) program. It has also the task of overseeing the security of the U.S. government's communications and data processing systems, and since the 1980s, NSA has managed the U.S. government's national operation security (OPSEC) program. In this article, the focus is on the challenges faced by the NSA during the Bush administration; the role played by the NSA during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and the challenges faced by the Obama administration in confronting a series of thorny legal and policy issues relating to NSA's eavesdropping program.

scholarly journals Surveillance Hegemony

2015 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Keiber
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Public Programs ◽  
Information Ecology ◽  
Public Surveillance ◽  
Surveillance Programs ◽  
The U.S

The National Security Agency activity disclosed by Edward Snowden plugs into a larger information ecology made possible by U.S. surveillance hegemony. While the revelations of the NSA’s international spying ambitions have astonished, there is more to U.S. surveillance than secretive programs carried out by its intelligence community. The U.S. also assiduously conducts surveillance on individuals abroad through public programs negotiated with other states. These more public efforts are made possible by institutions and hortatory norms that support international surveillance. This triad of capabilities, norms, and institutions reflect U.S. surveillance hegemony. Hegemony greases the wheels of U.S.-led international surveillance and fosters an information ecology that feeds, and is fed by, secretive programs like those of the NSA and more public surveillance alike. This article unpacks elements of U.S. surveillance hegemony and, using two other public surveillance programs, situates the NSA activity within the resulting information ecology.

The Quiet Americans? CIA, NSA, and Counterinsurgency

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin Long
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
The U.S

The contribution of the U.S. intelligence community (IC) to counterinsurgency operations past and present has gone largely underappreciated, in part because of the pervasive secrecy surrounding most of the IC's activities. A review of two recently declassified histories of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s provides insight into the historical contributions of these agencies to counterinsurgency efforts. This analysis provides a context for understanding available evidence relating to the two agencies' contributions to current counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The review concludes with intelligence policy recommendations.

Surveillance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Patriot Act ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Mass Surveillance

This chapter explores shifting patterns of intelligence surveillance in the United States. The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant, but foreign spying is subject to few constraints. During the Cold War, surveillance power was abused for political purposes. Operating in a culture of secrecy, American intelligence agencies engaged in extensive illegal domestic spying. The intelligence scandals of the 1970s revealed these abuses, prompting new laws, notably the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Fearing further recrimination, the national security establishment increasingly demanded legal cover. After 9/11, Congress expanded lawful surveillance powers with the PATRIOT Act. Meanwhile, the Bush administration directed the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless domestic wiretapping. To justify this program, officials sought to redefine unconstrained foreign surveillance to subsume previously protected communications. The Obama administration continued to authorize mass surveillance and data mining programs and legally rationalize bulk collection of Americans’ data.

Government Officials, Academics, and the Process of Formulating U.S. National Security Policy Toward Africa

1990 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Larry W. Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
National Security ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Phone Call ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
The Government ◽  
Research Contract ◽  
The U.S

Relationships between U.S. government officials and academic specialists working on national security and foreign policy issues with respect to Africa are many and complex. They can be as informal as a phone call or passing conversation or as formalized as a consulting arrangement or research contract. Many contacts exist and there is no doubt that many in both government and the academy value these ties. There have been, however, ongoing controversies about what settings and what topics are appropriate to the government/academic interchange. National security and foreign policy-making in the U.S. is an extremely diffuse process.

Specter of vietnam

Lovecidal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trinh T. Minh-ha
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Iraq War ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The Other ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Exit Strategy ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
The One ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses the problem of an exit strategy during the final days of the George W. Bush administration and how these issues echo the U.S. policy on Vietnam of many years before. It goes further, however, to analyze how the Obama administration approached future conflict in its initial years. On the one hand, the Bush administration's official storyline had revived the familiar paranoia of having victory turned over to the enemies. On the other, the exit strategy for withdrawal also raised widespread doubt about what was achievable in Iraq and Afghanistan and what the comprehensive results of the Iraq War turned out to be. The classic double bind thus wrote itself into every discussion of the “post-Iraq” era of U.S. foreign policy.

Crises and 'pivot' will boost US intelligence agencies

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
National Security ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Public Scrutiny

Subject The US intelligence community in a year after purported reforms. Significance On December 29, an agreement between the United States, Japan and South Korea to share intelligence on North Korea went into effect. This ended a year in which the US intelligence community was the subject of broad domestic public scrutiny in the light of continued fallout from former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden's leaks to a Senate report on the CIA's use of torture. The White House's support for reforms has been watched by tech and telecoms businesses that have lost considerable revenue from reputational damage as a result of the growing awareness of requirements on them of US intelligence activities. Impacts The Obama administration will rely on the US intelligence community as its main counterterrorist instrument. A Republican Congress will be less likely to support intelligence reforms, though only marginally so. There is no indication that the balance of power on intelligence issues between the executive and legislative branches has shifted.

US communications privacy concerns will outlast Obama

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Federal Agencies ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Executive Orders ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
Privacy Issues ◽  
Signals Intelligence

Subject US interagency procedures for sharing signals intelligence. Significance The administration of President Barack Obama is in the final stages of issuing new rules governing the sharing of signals intelligence (SIGINT) among federal agencies involved in national security. These rules, which the intelligence community has long expected, would clarify how the federal government may share communications-based intelligence, such as wiretaps and intercepts, among diverse agencies, and -- critically -- set boundaries on the use of such intelligence by agencies that did not originally collect it. Impacts The next administration -- whether Republican or Democratic -- will probably be less responsive to privacy groups in this area. The Obama administration's focus on executive orders governing emerging technologies has set precedent but offers few lasting restrictions. Privacy issues will hinder US international trade negotiations, further derailing TTIP talks for the foreseeable future.

The Security Dilemma in the U.S.-China Military Space Relationship

Asian Survey ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baohui Zhang
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
National Security ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Missile Defense ◽  
Security Dilemma ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
The Taiwan Strait ◽  
The U.S

The U.S.-China military space relationship has been driven by the security dilemma in international relations. China pursues military space capabilities in part to counter perceived national security threats posed by the U.S. quest for space dominance and missile defense. However, the current strategic adjustment by the Obama administration and the altered situation at the Taiwan Strait have moderated the bilateral security dilemma, offering an opportunity for arms control in outer space.

Counterterrorism from Bush to Obama

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-147
Author(s):  
Joana Cook
Keyword(s):  
Bush Administration ◽  
Obama Administration ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
The U.S

Terrorist actors, the nature of the threat they pose, and responses to them have evolved significantly since 9/11. This chapter provides an overview of how terrorism evolved under the Bush and Obama administrations, how they articulated their strategies to counter terrorism, and how women became visible within these. It first discusses terrorism in the U.S. prior to 9/11, demonstrating that many of the discourses related to women and security that became visible in the subsequent years were not new, but reflected trends already underway, though increasingly framed in relation to counterterrorism. It second analyzes the Bush administration (Republican, 2001--09) and its strategic approach to counterterrorism over his tenure, before thirdly analyzing the Obama administration (Democrat, 2009--17). It highlights the comprehensive, 'all-of-government' approach to counterterrorism articulated by both administrations. The chapter concludes with a summary of key discourses pertaining to women in the Bush and Obama administrations.

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