ABIN 2018 — Questão 10 · Língua Inglesa - Compreensão e Interpretação de Texto

Text CB1A5BBB

1------- Western intelligence agencies used to inhabit a

parallel world where spy battled spy. Their trade was stealing

or guarding secrets. Their masters were the men and women in

4 government. Today the intelligence services are part of

everyone’s world. Their main task has been to protect society

from terrorists and criminals. They are increasingly held to

7 account in the press, parliaments and courts.

The intelligence revolution is partly the result of new

technology. As recently as 1999, on becoming director of the

10 American National Security Agency (NSA), Michael Hayden

asked to send an e-mail to all staff. He was told: “We can’t

actually do that.” The organization used computers to break

13 codes rather than to surf the web as everyone else did.

The NSA’s new facility in Utah, the first of several, now stores

exabytes of data drawn from everyday communications.

16 At Britain’s GCHQ, most code-breaking was done on paper

until well into the 1980s.

The revolution has brought spying closer to ordinary

people. After the attacks on America on September 11^th 19 2001,

counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency became the focus for

the American intelligence agencies. Almost two-thirds of

22 today’s intelligence personnel have been hired since 9/11.

As the world has moved online, so the spooks have become

involved in monitoring organized crime and paedophiles as

25 well as terrorists.

In a not very remote past, spies sent coded messages

using short-wave radios and dead letter boxes. Now the

28 communications of the spooks’ new targets are mixed in with

everyone else’s, shuttling between computers and smartphones

that are identical to those on your desk and in your pocket.

31 Counter-terrorism, in particular, is pre-emptive. Hence the

security services have had to act as hunters of conspiracies

rather than gatherers of evidence.

Western intelligence — Shaken and stirred.

In: The Economist, 12/11/2016 (adapted).

Based on text CB1A5BBB, judge the following items.

The sentence “Michael Hayden asked to send an e-mail to all staff” ($\mathrm{\ell }$. 10 and 11) can be correctly paraphrased in the following terms: Michael Hayden enquired all his employees if he could send an electronic message.