I'd quibble with the idea that it's OK to (secretly) break military codes but not civilian ones as the analogy doesn't fully apply to 2013.
Nowadays, civilians and military are in many ways converging to the same exact types of technology. E.g. AES is civilian crypto and yet good enough for the most sensitive military secrets, so breaking a military cipher that happens to be used by civilians would still be militarily beneficial.
Likewise, the Navy would assuredly have eavesdropped on civilians in the Pacific, if civilians were out there on Japanese military frequencies. They would then have filtered the civilian crap out because it wasn't what they were going after, but the U.S., British, Germans, etc. would have eavesdropped on anything with an antenna if it gave them a wartime advantage and they wouldn't have thought twice about it.
And so that's what we're getting into, the Information Age equivalent to military forces using civilians as human shields, and the NSA continuing to chase after them regardless.
ProPublica is right that there is something scary about the idea of the government being able to decrypt at will, and I agree with ProPublica that there may even be reason to let the government use such an ability in carefully controlled circumstances, with appropriate safeguards, if they actually have that ability. So good on them for making it a point of discussion, and doing so responsibly. This is a great example of 'watchdog journalism' keeping the public alert and helping to keep the government honest.
Nowadays, civilians and military are in many ways converging to the same exact types of technology. E.g. AES is civilian crypto and yet good enough for the most sensitive military secrets, so breaking a military cipher that happens to be used by civilians would still be militarily beneficial.
Likewise, the Navy would assuredly have eavesdropped on civilians in the Pacific, if civilians were out there on Japanese military frequencies. They would then have filtered the civilian crap out because it wasn't what they were going after, but the U.S., British, Germans, etc. would have eavesdropped on anything with an antenna if it gave them a wartime advantage and they wouldn't have thought twice about it.
And so that's what we're getting into, the Information Age equivalent to military forces using civilians as human shields, and the NSA continuing to chase after them regardless.
ProPublica is right that there is something scary about the idea of the government being able to decrypt at will, and I agree with ProPublica that there may even be reason to let the government use such an ability in carefully controlled circumstances, with appropriate safeguards, if they actually have that ability. So good on them for making it a point of discussion, and doing so responsibly. This is a great example of 'watchdog journalism' keeping the public alert and helping to keep the government honest.