From: Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 1996 23:40:33 +0800
To: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com>
Subject: Re: NSA says strong crypto to China?
In-Reply-To: <199601080625.WAA21243@blob.best.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.ULT.3.91.960107223929.16243D-100000@Networking.Stanford.EDU>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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On Sun, 7 Jan 1996, James A. Donald wrote:

> At 03:23 PM 1/7/96 -0600, Alex Strasheim wrote:
> > But I don't necessarily look at the
> > NSA as an enemy.  Right now we're on opposite sides of an important issue,
> > and I think they're doing a lot of damage.  But I tend to think that they
> > believe what they're doing is in the national interest.  They're trying 
> > to defend democracy -- our democracy, at least.
> 
> I see no sign that NSA is capable of distinguishing between the 
> interest of the state and the interest of the nation.

Agreed. They're a bureaucracy and a statist entity. But states are 
distinct and antagonistic entities. There's no world government.

As someone who worked with Terry Karl in El Salvador, I also think your
Central American history is a bit off, but that's off topic, and normal
for the US. Agreed that Chomsky is usually rather weak on the facts, which
is why he is seldom cited in academic journals; he's really just a darling
of the press, because the man exudes eggheadedness and erudite sarcasm. He
never should have strayed from developmental linguistics. 

> Two government officials, one of whom is a communist, have 
> more in common than two communists, one of whom is a government 
> official.  The NSA is on the same side as the Chinese government,
> and if Chinese dissidents used crypto with US GAK, this information
> would be exchanged with the Chinese government.

I don't see this happening.

The NSA is logically allied with other organizations of greater
repressiveness, inasmuch as it is not really in the interest of the NSA to
pursue absolute freedom anywhere. Certainly they have no desire for anyone
in the world to enjoy privacy. However, this logical symmetry does not
translate to practical collaboration. You think the NSA and the Chinese
government trust each other at all? They're spying on each other.

One certainly observes strange bedfellow situations among three letter
agencies (the Iran/Contra affair; Cuban and South African aiding of
insurgents of every political stripe; US intelligence information on Iran
provided to Iraq); but one also observes strange conflicts (the Pollard
affair, Israel's spying on the US; back to Dreyfuss; intrigue within the
EC). 

-rich