Likely Incoming NSA Head Still Thinks the Problem is PR

Navy Vice Admiral Michael
Rogers is the president’s pick to take over the National Security
Agency from outgoing Gen. Keith Alexander. At a Senate committee
hearing earlier in the week, he promised to
improve the transparency of the NSA in the wake of the current
metadata surveillance scandal going around:

“I will be an active partner in implementing the changes
directed by the president with respect to aspects of the National
Security Agency mission and my intent is to be as transparent as
possible in doing so, and in the broader execution of my duties, if
confirmed.”

The problem, though, as Defense One notes, is that
Rogers doesn’t seem to think there’s an issue with what the NSA is
doing, but rather a problem with the general public’s understanding
of what the NSA is doing. He’s a firm resident of the “If the
people understood what we’re doing better they’d agree with us, not
Edward Snowden” camp. Defense One
quoted him from the hearing:

“I believe one of the takeaways form the situation over the last
few months is that as an intelligence professional…I have to be
capable of communicating in a way that highlights what we are doing
and why to the greatest extent possible. “One of my challenges is I
have to be able to speak in broad terms in a way that most people
can understand. And I look forward to that challenge.”

It’s been a common response to Snowden’s revelations that us
simple Americans don’t really understand what the NSA is up to, and
we would be just fine with their metadata collection if they had
done a better job explaining it. Except, as Jacob Sullum
noted earlier today, we actually are getting a better sense of
what metadata is and its collection probably reveals even more than
most Americans thought.