Hacking of Sony by North Korea

May Santa bring Obama more drones

Marilyn Langford

Unfair and Unbalanced

BY MARILYN LANGFORD

Published:

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 8:05 PM CST

This week I wanted to write something light-hearted, and perhaps inspiring for this holiday season. I had no intention of scaring the bejeezus out of you. But that was before I got all riled up over rinky-dink North Korea hacking Sony Studios and Sony canceling the Christmas Day opening of a movie that I really wanted to see.

ALL JOKING aside, this is a very serious matter. Calling it a “hacking” attack undermines the severity of this event. It should be called what it is….a terrorist attack! So now we are in a war—a different kind of war—a “Cyber War.”

AS IF we didn’t have enough to worry about, now we have to be concerned about “Cyber-Terrorism.” Cyber terrorism at its worst could destroy the infrastructure of our entire nation. Now that a country like North Korea has learned that they can bring a large American company, like Sony, to their knees and to have Sony capitulate to the threats, do you think they will stop there? I don’t.

SO WHAT can we, as ordinary Americans do about it? We can stop bashing and criticizing the National Security Agency (NSA), our government agency tasked with Cyber Security for our country. NSA is our first line of defense in this Cyber War. We can stop glorifying Edward Snowden by calling him an NSA “whistle blower.” Call him what he is, a treasonous, traitor snake who should rot in Russia.

DURING WORLD War II it became obvious that someone had to be responsible for code-breaking and signals intelligence. There were several military units that were forerunners to the NSA. But, the NSA as we know it, was created by President Truman in 1952, in a memorandum. Not even an Executive Order! A simple Memorandum. (Imagine that happening today!) The memo was classified and not known to the public at the time. Even though NSA has received much unwanted attention of late, it is still the most secretive agency in America. And that’s the way it should be. That’s the way it has to be to protect our country and our freedom. There comes a time when you must let some people do their jobs and get out of the way. This is one of those times.

NSA IS our most essential intelligence agency. I know of what I speak! I worked for NSA for 12 years, from 1980-1992. Let me make it clear that I don’t know any secrets! NSA strictly adhered to “Need to Know” and all I knew was enough to do my job as a recruitment assistant. For detailed information on the mission of NSA and to see lots and lots of acronyms, go to www.nsa.gov. There you will learn all you “Need to Know.”

THIS IS strictly a guess as to what is going on at NSA in response to the terrorist attack on Sony. Long before now, these NSA computer masterminds have already determined down to the longitude and latitude of the exact location of where the hacking took place. This information has been provided to the President and others with a need to know. It is not the job of the NSA to act on the information, only to obtain it.

ALL JOKING aside again. Dear Santa: Please bring President Obama lots of drones.

HAVE A very Merry Christmas and I hope you make a memory.

Marilyn Langford of High Falls writes a regular op-ed column in the Reporter sharing the liberal perspective on events.