NSA's Former General Council Talks Privacy, Security, and Snowden's 'Betrayal' 212
blottsie writes: In his first interview since retiring as general council to the NSA, Rajesh De offers detailed insights into the spy agency's efforts to find balance between security and privacy, why the NSA often has trouble defending itself in public, the culture of "No Such Agency," and what it was like on the inside when the Snowden bombshell went off. He describes the mood after the leaks: "My sense of it was that there were two overriding emotions among the workforce. The first was a deep, deep [feeling] of betrayal. Someone who was sitting next to them—being part of the team helping keep people safe, which is really what people at the agency think they are doing—could turn around and do something so self-aggrandizing and reckless. There was also a deep sense of hurt that a lot of what was in the media was not entirely accurate. Questioning the motives and legality of what NSA employees were being asked to do to keep Americans safe—all within the legal policy construct that we've been given—that was difficult for the NSA workforce."
"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Insightful)
So as long as my boss tells me it's okay to torture people and routinely violate the Consittution, it's okay?
Fuck you, cowardly anti-democratic traitor.
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Is NSA in the torture business? I thought that was the other three letter agency...
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They support and enable it. By all records, they do not do it themselves.
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The article seems like a lot of spin.
Doesn't give any details, basically citing that he isn't allowed to divulge details, about how and why people are protected by mechanisms like FISA, yet we've already been shown how much of a rubber stamp the FISA courts are, and still the NSA games the system to stymie what little oversight they have.
All of those bums should be prosecuted for breaking the law, but since the powerful protect the powerful, and power corrupts them, no one will ever laying charges against a
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a key phrase is "being part of the team helping keep people safe, which is really what people at the agency think they are doing"
So he admits they just think that they are helping keep people safe. Or that they have convinced the lower echelons that public safety is their goal, when higher-ups like him know better.
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Not only convinced them so, but now using them in an attempt to gain sympathy from the public
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Informative)
But, big BUTT here, the people at the NSA and people with university degrees, supposedly well educated and well informed people so the excuse but 'I'm stupid' doesn't really cut it. They knew they were breaking the law, every single last one of the lying asshats, they knew they were betraying their fellow citizens, there is no escape from that. What Snowden, was the one and only properly informed individual in the whole NSA including contractors, fucking bullshit. We are talking literally tens of thousands of co-conspiring criminals, obeying orders is no excuse, it is illegal to obey an illegal order and they are as guilty as the politicians who ordered them to do it.
Not Securing America (Score:2)
I believe the guy, at least partially. Probably a lot of NSA drones are honest, decent people that knew very little about all the dirty shit that the agency is pulling. In an organization that size you can't keep secrets very long unless you can compartmentalize information. There are probably a lot of low level people who work for the NSA because they believe in protecting America.
Of course that makes the small group(s) of filthy fuckers that are in the know and driving this s
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Doesn't even stop there. Couple of recent stories have pointed up a new NSA hack. They are right into the US postal service. All the computerised mail and parcel handling computers have now been hacked and pawned by the NSA. This is resulting in seeming completely random police raids on individuals who do a suspect amount of letter and parcel postage, extremely violent raids, as the Evil Empire is desperate to fund more tax cuts for the rich by stealing 'er' confiscating the assets of the middle class, the
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There are a zillion departments in the NSA. Saying they all knew they were breaking the law is a wildly stupid and inappropriate allegation. Additionally, the vast majority of what they do is perfectly legal.
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A lot of gerk and nerds knew the truth and where commenting on it many years ago, again stupidity is not an acceptable excuse, before quarter done government reports. Oh well, maybe stupidity with regard to quite a few NSA agents is a viable excuse, your choice ;D.
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I hope you hold the same policy toward everyone in a large organization. A few people make a mistake and you hold everyone in the organization accountable with the added "there's no excuse" bullshit.
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Insightful)
My grandparents on my mother's side where both part of some 3rd Reich organizations. They believed back then they were doing good and in hindsight never were sure they could have seen what they were really doing and supporting at the time they did it. Gave them a life-long extreme distaste for politics, because they realized it is easy to trick people into doing utter evil while they think that do good. The NSA workers that felt betrayed are lacking that insight, and they do so in a situation where finding out what it actually going on is much easier.
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Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Insightful)
My grandparents on my mother's side where both part of some 3rd Reich organizations. They believed back then they were doing good and in hindsight never were sure they could have seen what they were really doing and supporting at the time they did it. Gave them a life-long extreme distaste for politics, because they realized it is easy to trick people into doing utter evil while they think that do good. The NSA workers that felt betrayed are lacking that insight, and they do so in a situation where finding out what it actually going on is much easier.
Remember, Goebbel's propaganda wasn't primarily used to fool other nations, but to fool the Germans themselves.
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Rather obviously. However, the same techniques, only somewhat modifies to changed circumstances and language, are now used against the US population, and it is falling just as much for it as the Germans did back then. People do not learn one bit from history, it seems.
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> People do not learn one bit from history, it seems.
Nonsense - here we are having this conversation, along with millions of other Americans, long before things have gotten as bad as they did in Germany.
Nevertheless Barnum's law still applies: You can fool most of the people, most of the time.
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You do realize that these discussions are going into databases that will be used to select who gets it first, right?
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If it gets that bad, indubitably. Still, one must speak up now if there's to be any hope of avoiding that outcome.
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I agree on that.
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Rather obviously. However, the same techniques, only somewhat modifies to changed circumstances and language, are now used against the US population, and it is falling just as much for it as the Germans did back then. People do not learn one bit from history, it seems.
People are people. Social engineering works. Training can help against specific and obvious threats, but history isn't much help if the very information you have access to is only partial or wrong to begin with.
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if they do believe that they are doing some good, that doesn't excuse the constitutional violations.
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Or he's simply pointing out that - correctly or not - the NSA sees themselves as the good guys. Just like both Hitler and Churchill did. Admitting your self-image is subjective doesn't mean admitting it's wrong, much less purposeful self-deception.
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Darn Snowden and his outdated sense of patriotism. I guess he didn't get the memo that the Bill of Right's was downgraded the legal status of "Just a suggestion". It should have been clear to him that the American people couldn't be trusted with knowing what the government is doing to them. Good thing they already got all that money budgeted, because if there is one thing we know it's that once a program is a line item on the budget it can't be stopped.
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Ve vere yust followink orders!"
Time to watch Dr. Strangelove again, which perfectly captures the atmosphere inside this little man's bubble.
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Yes, fuck them.
"being part of the team helping keep people safe, which is really what people at the agency think they are doing"
Surprise assholes. We need people to keep us safe from YOU.
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Nice little propaganda piece that tries to put emphasis on an absolute side-show. You should be ashamed of yourself.
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Pointing out that justified intelligence actions are being damaged is a side show? What world do you live in? Snowden can justify releasing information about immoral intelligence gathering, but what about when the intelligence gathering is legitimate and within the purpose and intent of the agencies involved?
Releasing details about legal intelligence operations is throwing the baby out with the bath water and puts Snowden in a very different light - he justifies his actions by saying he wants to raise aware
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:4, Funny)
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News Flash from 1917 - The British are now a key American ally, as are Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
Screwing key allies is a bad idea, so of course Snowden screwed them all by stealing and leaking top secret information on their intelligence programs.
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There's a difference between screwing the government and screwing the country. snowden screwed the governement, but as a patriotic citizen of the UK, I feel that was richly deserved and very necessary. He certainly didn't screw the country.
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I think it would be fascinating to spend an evening at the pub with you while you explain your thinking on this (over a few pints). Consider... During the Blitz, when German bombs were falling on British cities, who was being screwed? Was it the British government, or the ordinary Britons under the bombs? During the Troubles, when the IRA set off bombs in Britain, who was being screwed? Was it the British government, or the ordinary Britons near the bombs? During the 7/7 attacks who was being screwed?
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You know I was alive during the troubles, right? And living in London.
Are your values such that it is ok for other ordinary Britons to be slaughtered en mass, just so long as it doesn't inconvenience you?
Nope. We've lost 52 people (I'm not counting the lost terrorist lives) to terrorism in the last 10 years. That's an average of 5 per year. How many lives have we lost because some fools decided to spend those billions on terrorism rathern than road safety which kills about 1800 per year.
IOW, you're decidin
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Key allies? You mean 51st states [wikipedia.org].
When the US government placed Realpolitik [wikipedia.org] above its Constitutional principles, "ally" ceased to mean "friend".
So keep in mind that Snowden didn't screw America's friends; the US government did that much earlier and what's left of it hasn't stopped yet.
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Are you talking about the same Falkland Islands which the British took over from the Spanish who took them from the British who took them from the French? I'm not really seeing any valid claim to "UK sovereign territory," only a claim by force. Argentina has a reasonably legitimate claim based on geography instead of imperialism.
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:5, Informative)
The British have claimed the Falklands since 1690.
The Falklands are well outside of customary territorial waters for any country, let alone Argentina.
The people of the Falklands have voted to remain British in referendum.
Is your position based on anti-Imperialism rather than will of the inhabitants of the islands?
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Did you know that before the Falklands war the British government was negotiating giving most of the islands back to the Argentinians? The plan was for the small inhabited part to remain British and self-governing, but for the rest of it to become part of Argentina and an agreement on things like access to the surrounding waters to be hashed out. It would have avoided a war and satisfied both sides.
Unfortunately both sides seemed to want a war at that point. Neither side would wait for negotiations to progr
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Both Crimea and Eastern UKRAINE were the occupied territory of a friendly nation. Russia conducted a war of aggression which began by inflitrating special forces to begin its military conquest. Putin has admitted this, and stated his willingness to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to seize Crimea. Should we also consider the rigged election that Russia held? Do you really want to go there?
That wasn't the case in the Falklands.
Re:"Policy construct we've been given" (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, we British don't really have an historical right of ownership of the Falklands, it's not like they are on our doorstep, or even in our hemisphere. However, the Argentinians have never had a presence on the islands (except for the famously brief war) and their only interest is in the oil reserves suspected, and now being found, in the surrounding waters. The war was also an attempt by the Junta to boost their flagging popularity in Argentina and a corresponding opportunity for the Conservative government to boost their own flagging popularity in the UK. There are no white hats in this fight.
The only tangible facts are that the people who now live on the islands voted overwhelmingly to remain under British sovereignty and that Mrs Thatcher had bigger balls (and better-trained special forces) than the Junta.
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The joke was on them because the cuts took a while to occur so they ended up being hassled by Harrier jets that were to be sold to the USA from the deck of an aircraft carrier that was to be sold to Australia.
Not enough UK troop transport? Cruise ships did the job.
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So he just handed a fuckton of information over to unvetted people?
How is that not the same as releasing it? Its still Snowdens responsibility. But I can see from my down modding above that certain twats dont want it pointed out that their messiah has flaws, and isn't the perfect little shit they profess him to be.
As for Argentina having a claim, sorry but there is no such thing as a claim based on geographical vicinity, and imperialism doesn't come into it as Argentina was created through imperialism in th
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You don't know your history very well, either.
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His well respected journalists have been on a non-stop crusade against the US since well before Snowden ever came into the picture. Important and controversial issues require balanced and impartial presentations and that certainly has not happened. They, like a lot of people, have decided that the US is always wrong and they refuse to entertain or even acknowledge any information that might weaken or possibly contradict their firmly held beliefs and editorial positions. They have released the information pi
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I said nothing of the sort. Nobody is trying to overthrow the US government. I only said there needs to be a balanced approach when evaluating the activities of the foreign intelligence agencies. When passing judgments you need to include both the pros and cons in the discussion but the problem is all you ever see are the cons which makes any decision or opinion from that discussion suspect.
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listen, Dick-head, the boots that need licking are in DC. shouldn't you be there instead of here?
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What information about the UK spying on Argentina was actually released? All I heard was the UK did it, and I'd struggle to find somebody who seriously thought they weren't doing so in the first place. The idea that the UK only did this between 2006 and 2011 is laughable - I'd expect the government to make as much effort to know whether it's just bluster from Argentina for exactly the reasons you detailed.
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A notable historical fuckup was part of the CIA supplying guns to Castro before the Cuban revolution while another part was trying to stop him. For more recent stuff see playing both sides of Israel and Hezb
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Everything you need to know about authority and your fellow man(including myself):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost%E2%80%93benefit_analysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-preservation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_courage
My first contribution is that "doing the right thing" is usually ambiguous and that inaction is almost always a safer behavior than risking taking action only to later discover you w
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It sounds like you've built for yourself a worldview in which altruism does not exist, and the only ultimate motivations are entirely selfish. My condolences.
In reality not everyone is nearly so steeped in psychopathy, though it does sometimes seem a necessary precondition to accumulating substantial wealth or power.
How 'bout.. (Score:1, Insightful)
That feeling that someone finally caught them doing what they knew most people would consider unconstitutional? Nobody experienced that within the NSA?
Re:How 'bout.. (Score:4, Insightful)
As explained in the article, the staff of the NSA does not have carte blanche to just spy on people. They operate based on requirements. Now, those requirements might cause information to be collected in a way that is unconstitutional, let's face it, they're doing a job. The feeling that they are doing something earth shatteringly wrong is not one that you get in a bureaucracy like the NSA because they're generally only privy to a compartmentalized section of it. Similar sorts of things happen all the time with regimes where large bureaucracies support activities such as intelligence gathering, or "special activities".
That means that any particular person working there believes that their little bit of the work is helping their country. Without a full insight into the project, they will not feel that the criticisms leveled at the Agency are leveled at them personally. Instead, they believe that Snowden is making their job more difficult, which honestly, he is. It's a matter of perspective. Easy for those of us with no involvement or investment in the NSA to take a strong view against their employer, but for those who earnestly work to do their job there to aid their country, they're going to feel like they're being betrayed. Some of them might, like Snowden, have a larger view and rebel against it, but do would not have his access.
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the staff of the NSA does not have carte blanche to just spy on people
They had to create an entire CATEGORY of spying called LOVEINT because so many of them were spying on their spouses, partners or potential dates. While the semantics over what was 'authorized' can be debated, that large numbers of agency personnel had access to the data to troll at their leisure without fear of reprisal still hasn't been refuted.
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And, apparently, there were no safeguards set in place to detect such activities.
It SHOULD have been easy to have a few internal people randomly checking the legality/applicability of searches.
From TFA:
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And, apparently, there were no safeguards set in place to detect such activities.
Apparently that isn't true since they have detected and punished the 1-2 people per year that act out in that manner.
If those statements were accurate than Snowden's "betrayal" would be meaningless.
Please explain your logic there. The quoted section would make Snowden's betrayal even more devestating, which it is.
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I'm pretty sure that losing your job and security clearance (for cause) counts as discipline, not 'discipline'.
So you think that the fact that individuals had a chance to cooperate with investigations and admit their wrongdoing implies that there was no other way they would be found out? You can believe that if you want to, I guess ....
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There wasn't any investigation even started with most of them...until they came forward.
That does not bode well since *most* people aren't going to self-report.
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Anyone holding a security clearance is subject to periodic reinvestigation. Things are stricter at actual intelligence agencies, including the use of polygraphs. (Spare me the discussion on them.)
Ordinary commercial companies do things like log SQL querries, and perform audits. I would expect nothing less at intelligence agencies. Being discovered would only be a matter of time for comptuer misuse. Even Snowden's activites were detected although he managed to lie his way out of it helped by the nature o
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Anyone holding a security clearance is subject to periodic reinvestigation.
so, clapper was investigated and found to be guilty of lying to congress? when does his sentence in prison start?
look, if you want to be taken seriously here on slash, you have to stop YOUR lying.
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I would expect nothing less at intelligence agencies.
That's cute. You believe government with no oversight is competent?
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Anyone holding a security clearance is subject to periodic reinvestigation.
so, clapper was investigated and found to be guilty of lying to congress? when does his sentence in prison start?
look, if you want to be taken seriously here on slash, you have to stop YOUR lying.
Let's review what I wrote:
Anyone holding a security clearance is subject to periodic reinvestigation. Things are stricter at actual intelligence agencies, including the use of polygraphs. (Spare me the discussion on them.)
And here is evidence:
Periodic Reinvestigations [dss.mil]
The whole thing about Clapper is you trying to put words in my mouth, and falsely claiming that I'm a liar. You seem to be providing evidence that you have an integrity problem.
Tell you what, I'll throw you a bone on the Clapper thing since you can't be bothered to come to a deeper undersanding of Wyden's underhanded dealing on your own.
Clapper and Wyden: Scenes from a Sandbagging [newrepublic.com]
Wyden’s Stunt Was Congress at its Worst [commentarymagazine.com]
`
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Feel free to read the NSA IG's letter in this story:
NSA offers details on 'LOVEINT' [cnet.com]
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You think that a major agency in the Department of Defense, headed by a 4 star General/Admiral, with a budget in the tens of billions of dollars that provides information to the President on a daily basis receives no oversight? And it can't figure out how to do log files and periodic audits?
You might be inhaling a little too much of that pixel dust.
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You apparently didn't comprehend much of what you read, or understand it in context. So called "LOVEINT" constitutes about 12 cases in 10 years. That isn't "common" in any meaningful way for an organization of over 10,000 people. Losing a security clearance means you aren't going to be able to handle classified information which means you can't work at an intelligence agency. People certainly were punished. How did you miss this?
One "received a reduction in grade, 45 days restriction, 45 days extra duty, and half pay for two months. It was recommended that the subject not be given a security clearance."
One "received a reduction in rank, 45 days extra duty, and half pay for two months. The member's access to classified information was revoked."
One's "database access and access to classified information were suspended."
One "received a written reprimand."
Would you like to give up a months' pay?
The "seven times per day" incidents
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there's my boy fjord! wondered when he would come along.
he's the slashdot equiv of fark's bevets.
only thing missing is the doctored up tarot card...
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They say they don't have a "carte blanche to just spy on people", but the issue becomes when you can effectively make everything classified nobody can check to see if you're following the rules. From the Snowden leaks it's obvious they do not follow the rules.
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However, pretty much the whole point of public displeasure over what the NSA has been doing is that its programs are sufficient
Re:How 'bout.. (Score:4, Informative)
Somebody who just pushes buttons or spies on North Korea or whatever wouldn't have any reason to develop an on-the-job sense that they were doing the wrong thing; but when you can't open a newspaper without seeing reports on 'NSA basically spies on all the stuff, all the time, at home and abroad; FISA is a sad joke, massive domestic dragnet, etc, etc.'; the fact that you don't feel like you do bad things at work is irrelevant to your consideration of whether your employer does some deeply troubling work.
In fact, if they do feel 'betrayed'; it's hard to argue that they aren't explicitly identifying with the actions of the agency; even if their job is unrelated to the ones that caught the public eye. Given that those programs were effectively certain to operate with impunity for as long as they wanted if they went undiscovered(even with public knowledge, they've been substantially resistant to any real change); there is very little room for a "Well, those programs are wrong but Snowden should have opposed them more responsibly!" position that isn't bullshit. Filling out a form and dropping it in the suggestion box or sending his boss a worried email or something would have been indistinguishable from doing nothing, in terms of effect.
Feel free to quit (Score:2)
Cry me a river. (Score:2)
"Editors" - council/counsel (Score:2)
My first interview question (Score:3, Insightful)
What aren't you in prison, rotting right next to all the other NSA leaders who betrayed their country and its Constitution?
so sad (Score:2)
"We let this man into our very own bunker, where we monitor everything that everyone says, even our bosses," said Rajesh De. "And then he went and told our bosses what we were doing. Let me tell you, it was a deep,deep sense of betrayal."
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serpico was also shunned by his peers and bosses...
you just have to wait a while for history to realize who was really a good guy and who was not.
Straw Man Detected... Legal !== Moral (Score:5, Insightful)
There was also a deep sense of hurt that a lot of what was in the media was not entirely accurate. Questioning the motives and legality of what NSA employees were being asked to do to keep Americans safe.
People who confuse or purposely use law as a synonym for morality are not to be trusted... The focus could not be more clearly on morality in this case.
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Indeed. Morality and ethics is what is about right and wrong. "The law" is about how the people writing it want the others to behave and quite often what the others should think. The law has absolutely no connection to morality or ethics (just look at some examples), but the claim of it being so must be the most successful global propaganda campaign of all time.
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...the nature of living language is that it changes, and many cromulent new words.
Do not twist my argument into one of pedantry, the semantic differences between "legal" and "moral" are not subtle, they are well defined concepts and not sensitive to the constant change that a language is subjected to. So let me be perfectly clear:
This is not someone misinterpreting a word, this is someone hiding behind the rules of others to avoid debating what is right and wrong. Rajesh De's argument is they had permission, the argument of the majority is their actions were wrong.
I challenge you to rep
Policies are not safeguards (Score:4, Insightful)
If you read the article, he talks about how they have "policies" against indiscriminate snooping. But it's all a lot of talk. For example, he says the FISA court "can be quite harsh" in their written opinions -- as if this were a real consequence. Maybe it's a big deal for a lawyer, but there's an extremely large cultural divide between lawyers and non-lawyers.
No one will be reassured by any of these statements. Nor should they be, if this is the best story the NSA can tell.
Re:Policies are not safeguards (Score:5, Insightful)
If you persist in this behavior we shall write you another stern letter.
Scary.
Re:Policies are not safeguards (Score:5, Insightful)
It is just like all people that have been part of a truly large evil: Denial, misdirection, lies. They never want to acknowledge they did wrong.
Rajesh De...Fuck You... (Score:1)
Rajesh De, you are so full of shit. The truth is you spineless fucks have been taking the country over and implementing some of the worst totalitarian wet dreams the world has ever seen. Most of it was illegal, in a position of National Security that is akin to treason. Any nation is a product of the laws an the ethos upon which it was built, the minute you undermine that, for whatever reason, you are the enemy, you are the traitor.
We all know this is systemic throughout the intelligence agencies and the
Rajesh De (Score:5, Insightful)
Your first and absolute responsibility is to the Constitution.
The NSA has failed miserably in that role.
In related news... (Score:4, Funny)
... Lucifer complained about God's betrayal and claimed that Hell has got to be hot, which is fully within the framework he is supposed to operate in and there is really nothing he can do about it.
Thanks for joining us tonight (Score:2)
Four Points (Score:4, Informative)
Difficult for them? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, fuck all that crying. It SHOULD be difficult for them. Anyone with as much power as the NSA should have to account for every damn thing they do on domestic and friendly soil. Fuck the delusional workers who think they're doing the public a great service. It's time for them to wake up and understand that they're goddamn pawns in the game of circumventing democracy so the rich and powerful can stay rich and powerful.
The NSA broke the public trust in a major way, and they deserve all the criticism and skepticism they get.
Damn Snowden!!! (Score:2)
Enron accountants felt betrayed too (Score:2)
Hope this is not exactly what he said (Score:2)
"being part of the team helping keep people safe, which is really what people at the agency think they are doing"
If this is exactly what he said, then haha.
The NSA has No American Style Checks and Balances (Score:2)
If our founding fathers were alive to learn NSA is doing, they would be grabbing their muskets from the walls!
Shame on you NSA.
Shame on you Congress for empowering them to do it.
Shame on us for re-electing them.
Shame on them for brainwashing us.
Thank God For Snowden (Score:2)
Irony (Score:2)
Coming from an agency who's entire public record can be summed up by the words "not entirely accurate" ...
...
...
Shit, dog, I got nothin.
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This.
I usually don't get on people about common typos like their and they're, but this is something an editor should catch. A counsel and a council are two completely different things.
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oops!
(fellow grammar pedant here)
I just wrote to Peter F. Hamilton [wikipedia.org] begging him to employ an editor to revise all of his excellent books with the correct use of which and that
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Also: False dilemma [wikipedia.org]
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The rhetorics and practices of "keeping our people safe" and "fighting the enemy" are well polished. The 3rd Reich did not invent them, they merely perfected them. The books by Goebbels are still used to train people in that business. The NSA employees that cannot see what they are part of are just more useful idiots. There is an endless supply of useful idiots that are willing to believe without verification or question if the propaganda just comes from some authority. These people make the building block
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Aaaaaand fail. In the face of an existential threat from enemies, maybe. But nothing like that is anywhere in sight. Hint: You have been successfully manipulated, and you are not even aware of it. Makes you one more "useful idiot".
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