A new report is alleging that President Obama has given the OK for the National Security Agency to take advantage of Internet security bugs in certain cases. According to the New York Times, which cites unnamed officials, Obama has given permission for the NSA to keep security flaws from the public in the event of "a clear national security or law enforcement need.”
“This process is biased toward responsibly disclosing such vulnerabilities,” Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said of the process of weighing the decision of whether or not to disclose the discovery of a security flaw. Obama's directive reportedly is to make security flaws known except in the aforementioned case of a national security need.
The revelation comes on the heels of news that the NSA was aware of the massive Heartbleed blug and will likely raise concern about how the agency can exploit similar cases in the vague name of national security.
[via The New York Times]
