In the Internet Age, when communications speed across national boundaries in nanoseconds, terrorist groups are winning the cyberspace battle, say intelligence and security experts.
Terrorists hide their communications with encryption software. They set up Web sites to help raise money for their operations. Computer hackers break into U.S. government networks to research possible targets.
Meanwhile, federal agencies that have spent billions on computer surveillance of terrorists and the nations that harbor them continue to struggle both with outdated technology and a flood of data to process.
Last week, former President George Bush criticized the nation's intelligence agencies for focusing too heavily on high-tech operations, rather than developing human spies in foreign terrorist groups.
One problem is that America's intelligence agencies are frozen in time, said Jeffrey Hunker, until recently a member of the National Security Council. The National Security Agency, the largest and most secretive spy shop, vividly demonstrates the problem, Hunker and other experts say.
The NSA operates spy satellites and gathers information from radio, microwave, television, telephone and Internet signals outside the United States. Despite a history of technical prowess that allowed it to crack secret codes of dozens of nations, the NSA is falling behind America's adversaries, experts say. The NSA "is far more . . . resistant to change than most" agencies because of internal power struggles, said Stewart Baker, the NSA's general counsel from 1992 to 1994.
Now the agency says it is spending billions of dollars to update aging computer networks and cryptographic tools. But experts say the NSA's sheer bulk and bureaucracy raise questions about its ability to keep up with technology's breakneck pace.
For three days last year the NSA's entire computer system went down because of antiquated, overloaded software linking its vast array of computers, listening devices and satellites. Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, NSA's director, said the agency went "brain dead." Fortunately for national security, the NSA kept the shutdown secret until the networks were up and running again.
Another problem is that lifetime employment at the agency and relatively low pay discourage technologically savvy workers from joining, Baker said. The NSA's budget has also been slashed--perhaps by one-third--over the past decade. Managers have responded by attempting to preserve existing jobs, which led to hiring freezes and delays in purchasing new equipment. "Their budgets have tended to preserve people over research and technology," Baker said.
