[ Thanks to Paul
Eggert for this link. ]
In a page-one article, LA Times staff writer Bob Drogin
writes:
“Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the National Security
Agency, was home watching television after dinner on Jan. 24 when
he got a frantic call: America’s global eavesdroppers suddenly had
gone deaf….”
“Intelligence experts blame NSA’s woes on budget and staffing
cuts since the Cold War, tougher targets and countermeasures and,
most important, a hidebound bureaucracy that remains wedded to
telex technology in the e-mail age….”
“NSA has lost its monopoly on cryptography, the making and
breaking of codes. Supposedly uncrackable encryption software is
now available on the Internet. The CIA says that several
terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas and Osama bin Laden’s
organization, now use encryption.”