(HorizonPost.com) – One of the most secretive parts of the United States government is the National Security Agency (NSA), the group tasked with defending the country on the cyber warfare battlefield. Now, because groups allegedly affiliated with Russia and the People’s Republic of China have stepped up their attacks against private companies, the NSA opened a center to help them collaborate with the private sector to defend against new cyberattacks.
Amid big hacks, U.S. spy agency touts collaboration center with private industry https://t.co/XXarEkZd6r pic.twitter.com/6yNpAGZcKw
— Reuters Tech News (@ReutersTech) June 23, 2021
The recent ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which saw gas shortages and panic buying along sections of the East Coast, is just one example of how a foreign power can hurt the country without ever using a traditional weapon of war. Morgan Adamski, chief of the new collaboration center, said the goal is to “work with Internet service providers, cloud computing companies, and cybersecurity firms.”
There have been some concerns about private information of American citizens being collected “without their consent or without the legal process required by the law,” according to Greg Nojeim, an Industry expert. And that’s a well-founded worry, considering the NSA has reportedly intercepted emails and cell phone metadata in the past simply because the items held a few of what they decided were keywords.
The Human Rights Watch organization felt that violations like these were courageous enough to publish an article in March 2020, saying that “the United States Congress should swiftly pass the Safeguarding American’s Private Records Act of 2020,” which would have outlawed the practices. However, according to the website Bill Track 50, the bipartisan legislation made very little headway and died on December 31, 2020.
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