this 7th June, the NSA 'chieftain' Hayden 'admitted' that the NSA has an 'immediate' need of lots of money and investments to stay 'competitive' against modern encryption algorythms like PGP and others, which grow stronger and more impenetrable.
despite the fact that the NSA's whole listening-network failed at the 30. Jan 2000 for almost full 5 days, and that the 'chieftain' Hayden admitted (more or less) freely in Dec. '99, that the NSA is falling more and more behind the technological advancements in the private/comercial sector


now that let us (or me ) think - is the NSA gone that down the drainage? is it more and more a toothless phantom ?
the peers amongst us, who know who/what the NSA is, are probably agreeing when i say "NSA - these are the bad guys who are spying on everything and everybody that is distantly related with computers and/or informations, and if i were u, then i'd back out/off from it"

but it seems that the once notoriously NSA has lost a lot of its 'power'/threat, especially as it has more and more to 'fight' against the Congress ab. to reveal the blueprints its ECHELON system, that the NSA is admitting that its computersystems are failing for days, and that they're admitting that they're 'out of money' and working with 'obsolete' equipment.

its then not surprisingly that the NSA is now moving out to the 'public' and seeking for privately/comercially owned comapnies to make the dirty spy-work for them...

if u want to read the offical statement ab. it, go here http://www.nsa.gov/releases/partnership_06072
000.html
(but read between the lines )


if u'r able to read german, go here: http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/info/6839/1.html

to find out more ab. it

so it seems to me that our society slowly moves to the point, which William Gibson already described in his books - Megacorporations are ruling the world, the countries, with their own heavily armed forces, cities and lands, and the 'real' goverment, has no power at all, and is only a puppet for the common folks controlled by the corporations.

just my ruminatively 2�

At