pray to GOD. He will listen.
Decrypting the Puzzle Palace previously published in the July, 1992 issue of Communications of the ACM
by John Perry Barlow
"A little sunlight is the best disinfectant."–
Justice Louis BrandeisOver a year ago, in a condition of giddier innocence than I enjoy today,I wrote the following about the discovery of Cyberspace: Imaginediscovering a continent so vast that it may have no other side. Imaginea new world with more resources than all our future greed might exhaust,more opportunities than there will ever be entrepreneurs enough toexploit, and a peculiar kind of real estate which expands withdevelopment.One less felicitous feature of this terrain which I hadn't noticed atthe time was a long-encamped and immense army of occupation.This army represents interests which are difficult to define. It guardsthe area against unidentified enemies. It meticulously observes almostevery activity undertaken there, and continuously prevents most whoinhabit its domain from drawing any blinds against such observation.This army marshals at least 40,000 troops, owns the most advancedcomputing resources in the world, and uses funds the dispersal of whichdoes not fall under any democratic review.Imagining this force won't require the inventive powers of a WilliamGibson. The American Occupation Army of Cyberspace exists. Its name isthe National Security Agency.It can be argued that this peculiar institution inhibits free trade, hasdamaged American competitiveness, and poses a threat to liberty anywherepeople communicate with electrons. Its principal function, as mycolleague John Gilmore puts it, is "wire-tapping the world." It is freeto do this without a warrant from any judge.It is legally constrained from domestic surveillance, but precious fewpeople are in a good position to watch what, how, or whom the NSAwatches. Those who are tend to be temperamentally sympathetic to itsobjectives and methods. They like power, and power understands theimportance of keeping it own secrets and learning everyone else's.Whether it is meticulously ignoring every American byte or not, the NSAis certainly pursuing policies which will render our domestic affairstransparent to anyone who can afford big digital hardware. Suchpolicies could have profound consequences on our liberty and privacy.More to point, the role of the NSA in the area of domestic privacy needsto be assessed in the light of other recent federal initiatives whichseem aimed at permanently denying privacy to the inhabitants ofCyberspace, whether foreign or American.
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Finally it seems an opportune time, directly following our disorientingvictory in the Cold War, to ask if the threats from which the NSApurportedly protects Americans from are as significant as the hazardsthe NSA's activities present.
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