New NSA Boss' Understatement Of The Year: NSA 'Has Lost A Measure Of Trust' From The Public

from the depends-on-what-'measure' dept

“I tell the [NSA] workforce out there as the new guy, let’s be honest with each other, the nation has lost a measure of trust in us,” Admiral Michael Rogers told a conference of the Women in Aerospace conference in Crystal City, Va.

In the future, he said, “If we make a mistake, you will hear about it. That’s my job as director and I have no problem with it. ... We are not going to hide our mistakes.”

“The whole media leaks issue as we call it, has caused quite a stir,” said Rogers, who was sworn in as director of NSA and assumed command of U.S. Cyber Command at the beginning of April.

Rogers didn’t lay complete responsibility at the doorstep of the NSA: He blamed public mistrust on the way the newsmedia had framed the issues raised in the Snowden revelations.



“From my perspective the debate and the dialogue to date have been very uneven,” he said.



“Your neighbors are saying to you: ‘Man, I’ve been listening about you on the TV and reading about you in the papers and I had no idea what a bad person you are,’” he joked.

He said the NSA and its staff had to work to “earn and sustain” Americans’ trust, but could not be too open about the work of the ultra-secret agency, which specializes in electronic eavesdropping and other surveillance using the latest high technology.

“I believe in transparency and I will be as transparent as possible, but I also have to be mindful that in doing so I cannot undermine the specifics of what we’re doing” to protect the country, he said.



“To do that [be transparent] I have to get out of my comfort zone,” he acknowledged. “I have to walk that tightrope.”

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New NSA boss Admiral Mike Rogers (once again, a different guy than NSA "overseer" and "chief #1 fan" Rep. Mike Rogers) has kicked off his new job by significantly understating the current predicament of the NSA with regards to its relationship with the public. In fact, count the multiple understatements in his comments:"A measure of trust." I guess that depends on exactly what "measure" you're talking about, but I'd start with a fairly large one, and then go up from there. And then up some more.Yes, the director of the agency which once denied its own existence and was referred to as No Such Agency is claiming the agency won't hide its mistakes? Pretty much the only thing that the NSA does is hide its own activities. That's its core competence. Hiding everything that it does, which all too frequently includes its mistakes."Lost a measure of trust," "media leaks issue," "quite a stir." Yes, Admiral Rogers is the master of the understatement.And, for all the talk about how the NSA won't hide from its mistakes, rather than taking responsibility for its mistakes, Admiral Rogers takes the easy way out: blame the media!That's a joke?Wait. I thought he was just saying that the NSA wouldn't hide from its mistakes any more (note that he has still yet to admit to a mistake, but instead, blamed the media for everything).So, he doesn't know how to be transparent, but he believes in transparency.To sum up, Admiral Rogers appears to be saying that the NSA lost some trust because of a "media leak" which caused "a bit of a stir," and because of that he's going to embrace transparency and not hide from his mistakes. But... at the same time, he won't admit to a single mistake, and it's really all the press's fault for misreporting on things that need to be kept secret. And, also, he believes in transparency so much that he admits he isn't comfortable with transparency, and if he's actually transparent, we might all die.That's not exactly going to win back any of the "measure" of trust the NSA lost there...

Filed Under: admiral mike rogers, nsa, surveillance, transparency, trust