The Real Cyber Czar

Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander is the director of the National Security Agency, the largest intelligence agency in the government, and with little public fanfare he has been setting up the central nervous system in the government's new campaign to defend cyberspace. The agency historically has not been a front-line guardian of civilian government networks, much less the systems that run privately owned electrical plants, dams and financial systems. But that is changing. Recently, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said NSA will provide DHS with "technical assistance" as it carries out its statutory mission to defend civilian networks and coordinate private sector protection. Homeland Security, with its much smaller and less experienced cyber staff, will depend on Alexander and his crew for the tools, expertise and resources to do the job. For his part, Alexander has kept a modest public profile and downplayed talk of bureaucratic turf wars with Homeland Security. He and Napolitano are on the same page, even if that can't be said for her staff. In his speeches and statements, Alexander displays the ease of a man who's been given a mission and who knows what it is. Whoever becomes czar will have to hope Alexander maintains this collaborative spirit - and that he returns phone calls.