in the UK, when CCTA (who by all accounts did a fine job) were kicked out of their central IT Security role by Security Service and CESG (who promptly lost the plot). That happened when the cold war had just finished, and Security Service no longer had a role...

When this happens you can be sure that the spooks are short of a job, and are looking to set up a new justification for their budget. So perhaps now that Obama's in, they're worried that the US will stop bombing the Middle East and causing all this fear of terrorism?

Never mind. I'm sure they can cause a lot of unrest and pain somewhere else soon!

Except that, while the CCTA "by all accounts did a fine job," the Department of Homeland Security sucks at technological safety, often scoring exceptionally poorly on the security front. So in this case, I have to agree that the NSA is better equipped for the job.

Paris, better equipped for the job than DHS.

The right choice to protect our data? Accountable? Not likely. What, are they going to stop being the US government agency most shrouded in secrecy?

No, even if this fox knows the henhouse best, it's not a good bet to trust the spooks to keep your secrets safe.

When the guys and gals at No Such Agency start saying "trust us we'll do a great job and promise not to abuse our power" I get very nervous. Not to say that they aren't very qualified to help with these security matter because they are, to a degree that no other agency save maybe Christians In Action are. However at the end of the day they are still a government spy agency and as such I trust 'em about as far as I can toss the Washington monument.

DHS in the US is security theater. Nothing more. They hire the lowest level people they can find that can barely fill out an application. Their security policies are a joke - how many times have they hired illegal aliens now? I've lost count.

The NSA are a bunch of bad asses. While I don't trust them, I don't trust them for the opposite reason I don't trust DHS.

I thought NSA got folded into DHS Along with about 23 (?) other organisations.

My first thought on discovering this stat was how would they decide where to hold each cities Xmas party, let alone which site to consolidate around.

Part of NSA's remit (is there charter still secret?) is described as (i think) data security, in the same way that GCHQ supplied secure voice links (speech @ 2400bps in 1960 was quite clever).

But would you trust them not to take a backup copy of our code/database/access codes? No malice you understand, just being cautious.

The least bad option if you think you need serious security.

But I *really* wouldn't put the NSA in charge of it. They have a complete conflict of interest. They're job is spying. They want things to be *insecure*. Look how they complained over the RSA thing. Now you are saying you should put *those guys* in charge of keeping America secure? I don't know, they know their stuff, but to ask someone to simultaneously be an aggressor and a defender sounds like they will do one or both jobs poorly. Lets let the NSA be the NSA, and assign cyber security to some new department, *not* DHS. Oh yeah, and break up DHS while you're at it.