The National Security Agency (NSA) is establishing a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) Security Center to further develop and integrate AI in federal intelligence.
In a press release, the Defense Department clarified that the AI Security Center would also consolidate existing AI and security-related activities across the NSA. NSA Director Paul Nakasone first disclosed the new center during a National Press Club luncheon on Thursday.
“The AI Security Center will work closely with U.S. Industry, national labs, academia across the [intelligence community], and Department of Defense and select foreign partners,” said Nakasone.
Nakasone cited China and Russia’s AI-related activities as the main motivators behind the consolidation, declaring a need for the U.S. to maintain an advantage in AI. According to Nakasone, consolidation would also prevent the theft of AI intelligence and technologies.
The director clarified that humans, not AI, would have the final say on analyzing threats.
“Within the Department of Defense, within the intelligence community, AI helps us, but our decisions are made by humans and that’s an important distinction,” said Nakasone.
However, Nakasone declined to answer a reporter’s question on whether Americans should stop the expansion of the surveillance society due to the potential of AI to curtail personal freedoms.
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“I’ll leave that question for someone else to answer,” said Nakasone. “[A]s a nation we need an ability to understand what our adversaries do and we need a national security that balances this with civil liberties, privacy, and I think that that’s what our intelligence community does very well.”
NSA’s AI Security Center is the latest federal intelligence initiative focused on developing and advancing AI technologies. Earlier this week, the CIA revealed that it was planning to unleash an AI tool to 18 intelligence agencies to sort through public information. Those agencies included the NSA, as well as the FBI and military.
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced its first chief AI officer and new policies ensuring equity in AI usage.
These developments largely align with a roadmap issued last year by the Defense Department tracking the implementation of AI.
A significant asset for AI Security Center operations would be the continued existence of Section 702.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is a controversial surveillance power enacted in 2008 with the intent to track foreign nationals that, by consequence of design, also exposes Americans’ communications. That section is scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
As he has done throughout this year, Nakasone advocated on Thursday for Section 702’s reauthorization. The director claimed it was a necessary surveillance power for saving American lives and interests, citing federal intelligence obtained on the Chinese origins of fentanyl.
“[T]he President’s Intelligence Advisory Board called 702 the cornerstone of the intelligence community’s ability to uncover and track threats to America, and noted that 702 does not threaten the civil liberties of Americans so long as the right culture processes and oversight are in place,” said Nakasone.
However, that same advisory board recommended limiting Section 702 to foreign intelligence purposes only in a July report. The board also recommended a number of other reformations to Section 702, including removal of intelligence agents’ authority to query non-national security-related crime.
The board’s findings are conducive with the consistent abuses of Section 702 since its enactment.
Notably, in 2017, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found that the Obama-era NSA abused Section 702 to spy on Americans for years.
Similarly, in May, the court reported that the FBI misused the Section 702 database over 278,000 times.