Hostile Takeover: Now the NSA Wants to Snoop on Wall Street, too

[Commentary] You might think that Gen. Keith Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, would be looking to lower his agency's profile after a stream of embarrassing leaks about its surveillance activities. Instead, he's doubling down, asking for new powers to secure the U.S. financial industry -- and using some rather suspect arguments to support his demands.

Gen Alexander said that eventually, and likely in the midst of a crisis, policymakers will have to decide under what conditions the NSA can take action to stop a major cyberattack on US businesses or critical sectors of the economy. "That's where we're going to end up at some point," he said. Using the financial services sector as an example, Gen Alexander said, "You have to have the rules set up so you can defend Wall Street." Drawing an analogy to how the military detects an incoming missile with radar and other sensors, Gen Alexander imagined the NSA being able to spot "a cyberpacket that's about to destroy Wall Street." In an ideal world, he said, the agency would be getting real-time information from the banks themselves, as well as from the NSA's traditional channels of intelligence, and have the power to take action before a cyberattack caused major damage. The analogy was a stretch.