Getting past the zero-sum game online

[Commentary] In the late 20th century, many viewed the world as a zero-sum game. Any US loss of competitive advantage was our adversary’s gain, and our security, the argument went, was correspondingly weakened as well. Then, a key technology battleground was a measure of raw computing power known as “MTOPS” -- or millions of theoretical operations per second. Successive administrations tried to protect this assumed US security advantage by blocking exports of computers above a certain MTOPS limit to any but our closest allies.

The National Security Agency was always an important player in this discussion. After all, in the business of making and breaking codes, advantages in computing power were often decisive. The export barrier was seen as the NSA’s friend. US intelligence was given a black eye, unfairly for the most part, by l’Affaire Snowden. It has conducted its business honorably, with restraint and oversight -- perhaps more than any other country. But that has been little noted. Today’s issues give the United States a chance to demonstrate to the world that its tough and powerful intelligence services understand what is at stake and intend to join the public discussion on how to balance the truly important privacy and security questions before us and, more important, take meaningful steps to make us stronger.

[Michael Hayden is a principal at the Chertoff Group, and was director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005 and the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009]