La función de Inteligencia ante los retos de la Revolución DigitalLa National Security Agency como instrumento de seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos en el ciberespacio

Abstract

U.S. Intelligence as an activity of gathering and analyzing information on the international reality, with which to obtain advantages in political decision-making, had its origin in the framework of the military confrontations of the past 20th century. However, with the irruption of the bipolar world that marked the end of the Cold War and, (after the fall of the Soviet blockade), the insertion in the digital era with the arrival of the 21st century, Intelligence has been forced to mutate and adapt to the new changes trying to exploit the advantage, circumvent the vulnerabilities and anticipate the threats. However, the technical capabilities of this new digital domain represented by cyberspace confer some intrinsic difficulties to the practice of digital or electronic intelligence, which hinder the exercise of power pursued by the United States in this new environment and which favor to increase, in itself, the lack of leadership in it. Due to the presence of a multiplicity of state and non-state actors converging in this new digital domain, capable of balancing the balance of power and becoming protagonists of the threat, the National Security Agency (NSA) plays an essential role in the attempt of US leadership in this scenario, a source of opportunities as well as of conflict. The NSA was one of the least known and least publicized agencies within the national security apparatus until the 1970s. Since its formation in 1952, its insiders sometimes referred to it as the “No Such Agency,” denying its existence altogether. When the Church Committee hearings revealed that the agency was the Government's main technical resource for monitoring and intercepting the communications of adversaries abroad through the use of satellites, submarine cable taps or listening stations scattered around the world, the NSA was confirmed as the main instrument of power in the surveillance of US Administrations, which served to give it an advantage and place it at the forefront over other Agencies or Departments in the exercise of power in the subsequent digital environment...