China’s hacking the U.S., the NSA is hacking “us”

From recent news we understand that China is, and has been for probably quite some time, hacking the U.S., I suppose at various levels, probably any level that they can.  Following that, we understand that the NSA (National Security Agency (of the U.S)) is hacking “us” the people of the U.S., also it appears at various levels. 

Why doesn’t the NSA work on the security problem that the country has concerning the circumstances of our being hacked by China? 

As always, I could be wrong about this; at least in part, but, at this point, this is initial thinking.

I also include some concerns that I think may not be the main reason that certain people object. 

Normally I agree with and trust President Obama.  Just not certain about this, for the reasons mentioned.  Certainly he knows more than me, but, there are things to be considered.

For one, as I said starting out, if the U.S. is having problems being hacked by China, and who knows who else; then I would think the NSA would have sufficient resources applied to this matter, rather than whatever amount of time, manpower, money, resources they are applying to gathering personal phone calls and internet use of multi-millions of U.S. citizens.  Frankly, I think that the scope as it’s being described in the news, is, if nothing else, a tremendous, enormous, amazing waste of – ‘Time, Manpower, Money, Resources’ – and I can’t see it otherwise.  Frankly, they’re more likely to only complicate and or even confuse things with a program like this.  More data lost in the shuffle, and an incredible lack of focus on the part of the NSA.  At least to me, I would think that if the NSA, has time, money, manpower, resources to capture the multi-multi-millions of phone records and internet traffic from U.S. citizens, then there must be absolutely nothing whatsoever going on in the world that would normally be considered the type of threat that the NSA, you would think, would be concerned about and paying attention to.  Like the circumstances as reported concerning the hacking by the Chinese.  So, if they don’t have that particular problem completely resolved and in hand, then why are they devoting what must be enormous amounts of money, manpower, etc… to gathering innocent records on innocent U.S. citizens.  To me, at some point, their focus is off!!! 

Following that, there is way too much, tremendous opportunity for abuse of something (information) like this.  Especially if it falls into the wrong hands; which is not impossible.  What if the Chinese hack the NSA, then all the data collected would be at their disposal.

As I remember, quite a while back, before the Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11/01, the NSA had been for some time tracking Osama Bin Laden by his phone use.  Well, that was leaked and Bin Laden then changed his habits and that was the end of that.  So, as any other agency, or any other human run operation, the NSA is not without fault. So there’s always room for abuse or some other misfortune or unforeseen consequences.

Another aspect to be concerned about.  From what I understand, the FISA court itself is quite secret.  I don’t really appreciate that either.  Who knows, is this something that Dick Cheney put together, or what(?) Did GW Bush and D Cheney 'pack' the FISA court?

In addition to considerations as mentioned above; I’d recommend other considerations as follows.  What I hope to be the subject of another post, at some  point, which I’d like to summarize here: given the circumstances concerning the confidential leaks attributed to Pvt Bradley Manning from the U.S. Army and the information revealed by civilian Ed Snowden, I think it should be considered that, there is no guarantee that absolutely anyone and everyone who has the appropriate clearance and access is someone who is completely trustworthy and has the character, maturity, professionalism and discipline to be trusted with any information to which they may have access.   

That said, this is another area whereas the average American may have reason to fear abuse of what should be considered personal, privileged information which they would like to think is not going to fall into hands of someone who could potentially abuse it.  Or, if not abuse it themselves, possibly just act irresponsibly, unprofessionally enough that they inadvertently make the sensitive information available to someone else, who then, may be disposed to abusing such information. 

This post is currently continued and edited on an ongoing basis.