The plan calls for the NSA to work with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to monitor such networks to prevent unauthorized intrusion, according to those with knowledge of what is known internally as the "Cyber Initiative." Details of the project are highly classified...
At the outset, up to 2,000 people -- from the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA and other agencies -- could be assigned to the initiative, said a senior intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The NSA's new domestic role would require a revision of the agency's charter, the senior intelligence official said. Up to now, the NSA's cyberdefense arsenal has been used to guard the government's classified networks -- not the unclassified networks that now are the responsibility of other federal agencies...
Current and former intelligence officials, including several NSA veterans, warned that the agency's venture into domestic computer and communications networks -- even if limited to protecting them -- could raise new privacy concerns. To protect a network, the government must constantly monitor it.
"This will create a major uproar," predicted Ira Winkler, a former NSA analyst who is now a cybersecurity consultant.
"If you're going to do cybersecurity, you have to spy on Americans to secure Americans," said a former government official familiar with NSA operations. "It would be a very major step."
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