The NSA Must Be Reigned In

More than 230,000 computer systems from across the globe were recently attacked by a vicious ransomware virus, named “Wanna Cry,” that crippled computers for some of America’s largest companies, including FedEx. The virus, one of the largest of its kind, was paid for by the American taxpayers. How did this happen? How did this life threatening tool end up in the hands of seemingly illiterate hackers? Simple answer: government incompetency.

The NSA has spent the last decade building up an arsenal of digital doomsday weapons completely in the dark. The American public has been barred from seeing exactly how much of their money is used by the NSA to create these monstrosities. With an estimated budget of well over ten billion dollars annually the NSA is one of the most well-resourced intelligence agencies in the world and yet they still managed to get duped by hackers who can’t even master the English language.

The Wanna Cry virus was not a fluke as some in the security industry would like you to believe. There is no way of knowing what weapons the NSA has lost control of, or even created. Serious threats to major technological infrastructure have already been discovered. Healthcare , finance , even personal electronics have all been revealed as targets for government hacking and now those tools are available to the internet’s underworld.

The hackers who created the Wanna Cry debacle, and are allegedly responsible for the majority of the leaked NSA data, who call themselves the “Shadow Brokers,” have decided to let the world know what else the NSA has up its sleeve, for a price. Starting in July the hackers will be releasing the next generation of NSA created weapons on a monthly basis . A subscription to their prized service will cost only $23,000 (USD) making the tools accessible to even the most modest of criminal and terroristic organizations.

Even though the NSA has been unable to control the weapons of war it has created thus far, they are undoubtedly working on creating even more horrifying digital ordnance. The security agency that cannot even keep its own classified assets secure is doing the unthinkable, yet predictable, by attempting to solve the problem with more of your money . With essentially no congressional oversight and a classified budget the NSA lacks any form of accountability for creating and subsequently losing some of the most dangerous digital material known to mankind.

Congress must be urged to step up and reign in the NSA and other intelligence agencies that actively endanger American data through reckless creation and storage of digital weapons. The government exists to protect its citizens, and their property, from threats. As it stands right now the practices employed by the intelligence community are doing more to endanger American assets than secure them.

Help FreedomWorks push back against the federal government’s dangerous intrusion by demanding a digital bill of rights . By endorsing these protections you are telling congress that you will no longer stand for government policies that make American data unnecessarily vulnerable. The right to secure data should never be compromised.