Before a crowded audience at the American Enterprise Institute, General Keith Alexander, chief of both the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command, advocated for information sharing legislation between private companies and the federal government.
According to an AOL Defense article, Alexander said that even though this is a politically charged year, the issue of information sharing is one that is agreed upon by both sides of the Congressional aisle.
He said that the government’s ability to monitor emails of critical private companies is important so that threats can be seen and responded to very quickly.
In answering questions about possible breaches of privacy to individual American citizens, Alexander responded that it was ludicrous to think that the government would read everyone’s personal emails.
He added that there are 30 trillion emails exchanged in the U.S. every year and it is impossible to look through each one.
Alexander said that agencies such as the NSA want private companies to report the signatures of certain threats because they need to know when the critical infrastructure of the U.S. is being attacked.
In ending his article, Sydney Freedburg Jr. points out that Alexander used the words “network†speed throughout his talk which implies “sending that information must be automated, or at least left to a quick click by a network administrator — with minimal time for thought, let alone legal review. That’s why it’s essential to get the rules and standards right to begin with.â€
