Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a four-time Wash100 Award, said the organizational criteria for separating the National Security Agency from Cyber Command have not yet been met and that the split will impact the military’s access to signals intelligence, Defense One reported Monday.
“For us in the military, the signals intelligence we get from the NSA is … unbelievably good. It’s among the most valuable pieces of intelligence we get on a daily basis,” Milley told reporters.
“The last thing we want to do is anything that would cause harm to … the production and dissemination of that information. So we want to make sure we do it right, slow, step by step. You can’t miss a beat with this thing,” he added.
Separating NSA and Cybercom requires the approval of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense under the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). To secure the approval, the 2020 NDAA directs the command’s cyber mission force to demonstrate that it can carry out national-level missions in cyber space.
