richard_clarke_on_nsaPardon my having some fun with all of this. Quite a read here. So I'll post the text, or go to the RT article here.

""The encryption standards need to be trusted," he said, according to Infosecurity Magazine. "The US government has to get out of the business of fucking around with encryption standards... We need to rebuild the trust in encryption; we need to have the US government forced some way into ensuring this happens," he said.

"As part of the group's recommendations, they advised that the NSA "not engineer vulnerabilities into the encryption algorithms that guard global commerce" and "not demand changes in any product by any vendor for the purpose of undermining the security or integrity of the product, or to ease NSA's clandestine collection of information by users of the product.""

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Bush cyberczar: NSA created 'the potential for a police state'

​The former cyber advisor under President George W. Bush had some harsh words for the United States National Security Agency during an address in California on Monday: "get out of the business of fucking with encryption standards."

That was the recommendation that famed cyberczar Richard Clarke made while speaking earlier this week at the at the Cloud Security Alliance summit in San Francisco.

Clarke, 63, served as a counterterrorism advisor for President Bill Clinton in the 1990s and later assisted his successor, Mr. Bush, as the special advisor on cybersecurity for that administration through 2003. Most recently, though, Clarke was assigned to a five-person panel assembled by Pres. Obama late last year that was tasked with assessing the NSA's operations in the midst of ongoing and ever-damaging leaks disclosed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. In December, that group suggested 46 changes for the Obama administration to consider in order rein in the secretive spy agency.

Speaking during Monday's conference, however, Clarke opened up about some of the more personal suggestions he has for the NSA, and even some insight about what the future may have in store for the agency if they continue to collect intelligence from seemingly all corners of the Earth.

"In terms of collecting intelligence, they are very good. Far better than you could imagine," Clarke said. "But they have created, with the growth of technologies, the potential for a police state."

"If you're not specific, an agency that bugs phones is going to bug phones," he added, according to the Tech Target blog, Search Security. "The NSA is an organization that's like a hammer, and everything looks like a nail."
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