NSA Gets Caught With Hand in Cookie Jar
The National Security Agency has admitted keeping persistent cookies on visitors to its website. It will discontinue the illegal practice, and says it was a mistake.
Don Weber, an agency spokesman, said in a statement yesterday that the use of the so-called persistent cookies resulted from a recent software upgrade.
Normally, Mr. Weber said, the site uses temporary cookies that are automatically deleted when users close their Web browsers, which is legally permissible. But he said the software in use was shipped with the persistent cookies turned on. "After being tipped to the issue, we immediately disabled the cookies," Mr. Weber said.
As to why it's illegal:
In a 2003 memorandum, the Office of Management and Budget at the White House prohibited federal agencies from using persistent cookies - those that are not automatically deleted right away - unless there is a "compelling need."
A senior official must sign off on any such use, and an agency that uses them must disclose and detail their use in its privacy policy.
This isn't the first agency to engage in the practice:
The government first issued strict rules on cookies in 2000 after disclosures that the White House drug policy office had used them to track computer users viewing its online antidrug advertising. Even a year later, a Congressional study found 300 cookies still on the Web sites of 23 agencies.
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