[ISN] Dancing Spychief Wants to Tap Into Cyberspace

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/01/13/dancing-spychief-wants-to-tap-into-cyberspace/

By Siobhan Gorman
The Wall Street Journal
January 13, 2008

Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect Americas 
cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate 
over surveillance law look like a walk in the park, McConnell tells The 
New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands Monday. This is going to 
be a goat rope on the Hill. My prediction is that were going to screw 
around with this until something horrendous happens.

At issue, McConnell acknowledges, is that in order to accomplish his 
plan, the government must have the ability to read all the information 
crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from 
abuse. Congressional aides tell The Journal that they, too, are also 
anticipating a fight over civil liberties that will rival the battles 
over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Part of the lawmakers ire, they have said, is the paltry information the 
administration has provided. The cyberspace security initiative was 
first reported in September by The Baltimore Sun, and some congressional 
aides say that lawmakers have still learned more from the media than 
they did from the few Top Secret briefings they have received hours 
before the administration requested money in November to jump start the 
program.

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