U.S. NEWS Updated June 9, 2013, 11:47 p.m. ET
Technology Emboldened the NSA
Advances in Computer, Software Paved Way for Government's Data Dragnet
WASHINGTON—Key advances in computing and software in recent years opened the door for the National Security Agency to analyze far larger volumes of phone, Internet and financial data to search for terrorist attacks, paving the way for the programs now generating controversy.
NSA stumbled in a number of its data-collection and management efforts, particularly a program called Trailblazer, but it began to gain traction with another program, which became known as Real Time Regional Gateway, or RTRG, former officials said.
The NSA also became an early adopter. At a 2009 conference on so-called cloud computing, an NSA official said the agency was developing a new system by linking its various databases and using Hadoop software to analyze them, according to comments reported by the trade publication InformationWeek.
The system would hold "essentially every kind of data there is," said Randy Garrett, who was then director of technology for the NSA's integrated intelligence program. "The object is to do things that were essentially impossible before."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323495604578535290627442964?mg=reno64-wsj.html?dsk=y
This isn't George Bush's NSA.
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