The US National Security Agency (NSA) has upset a great many people this year. Since June, newspapers have been using documents leaked by former intelligence worker Edward Snowden to show how the secretive but powerful agency has spied on the communications of US citizens and foreign governments. Last month, the media reported that the NSA, which is based in Fort Meade, Maryland, had undermined Internet security standards. The revelations have sparked international outrage at the highest levels - even the president of Brazil cancelled a visit to the United States because of the spying. Yet amid the uproar, NSA- supported mathematicians and computer scientists have remained mostly quiet, to the growing frustration of others in similar fields. "Most have never met a funding source they do not like" says Phillip Rogaway, a computer scientist at the University of California, Davis, who has sworn not to accept NSA funding and is critical of other researchers' silence. "And most of us have little sense of social responsibility."
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