ABSTRACT
The National Security Agency's (NSA's) impressive electronic edifice is as much a symbol of US authority as of the shifting power relationship between the individual and a state eager to control the flow of all information. The NSA operates like a huge archival Wayback Machine, gathering detailed historical data, more suitable for plundering industrial secrets or finding targets to destroy in Cyberwars than stopping terrorists. The NSA was designated as the US's overseas electronic spy agency, but after the 2001 attacks on New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington, US president George W Bush turned its awesome power inwards. To the applause of many journalists, the Australian government condemned Edward Snowden as a traitor – even though he is an American citizen. The notion that the central role of journalism was to disclose secrets which powerful interests wanted kept from the public was being upended, particularly in the important area of national security.
