
Severing Ties with the NSA - dil8
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2013/11/severing_ties_with_the_nsa.html
======
genwin
Excellent. Ostracizing complicit people is the key to reducing bad behavior.
Imagine if you did some real bad but legal thing and then no one would talk to
you, not even your family, or even serve you in a restaurant. Others would
think twice. I don't think it's as horrible a consequence as prison, where
these people belong. (NSA folk flouted their oath to support the Constitution
and defend it against domestic enemies.) If you changed your ways you could be
forgiven.

~~~
pekk
Unfortunately, "ostracizing complicit people" is often interpreted as code for
"using force against people who disagree with me" (for example, someone who
expresses an unpopular opinion concerning Bradley Manning).

Blackballing people based on ideology is a McCarthyite idea, not a progressive
one

~~~
appleflaxen
I'm pretty sure the OP is advocating blackballing based on their actions.

As he says, their behavior is illegal, and blackballing is better than they
deserve. Nobody is advocating anything except due process and free speech.

Who can possibly object to that?

~~~
whyenot
> As he says, their behavior is illegal, and blackballing is better than they
> deserve. Nobody is advocating anything except due process and free speech.

It's not clear yet that what they did is illegal. No court has ruled that.
It's sickening to me that you can on one had assume that a group of people
should be punished for something they may not even be guilty of while at the
same time claiming to support due process.

~~~
grey-area
_It 's not clear yet that what they did is illegal. No court has ruled that._

These revelations have seriously weakened many people's belief in the rule of
law, applicable to all. Secret courts and secret committees which oversee this
activity lead us to judge actions as either moral or immoral, because we have
no way to trust or verify the court decisions, or find out whether the law is
even being followed, or even how it is being interpreted.

 _It 's sickening to me that you can on one had assume that a group of people
should be punished for something they may not even be guilty of while at the
same time claiming to support due process._

When the law is applied inconsistently or not at all, people resort to
vigilante action.

This is the fault of politicians who have proposed retrospectively legalising
activities like metadata collection on every American, tapping every line they
can get their hands on, or ignoring breaking into foreign telecoms outfits in
supposedly allied countries in order to perform mass surveillance. I'd prefer
to avoid vigilante action too, because it does lead inevitably to more evil,
misunderstanding and mob justice. We see this from time to time on HN as the
mob picks on a target (typically a web company) and tears them apart for some
trivial misdemeanour poorly understood at the time. Once the mob starts, it
cannot be stopped, and everyone just joins in because to not join in or raise
questions makes you a target. At times something similar has happened here to
those who oppose this surveillance. People feel angry and impotent and take it
out on those who support these actions.

I do think this part of your statement is incorrect though and does not follow
from the first sentence - _something they may not even be guilty of_. We now
know with a fair degree of certainty what they are guilty of, the legitimate
question you raise is whether it is technically considered illegal or not. For
many people though, because of the misuse and perversion of the laws governing
these activities, they don't trust the law, and the question has now become:

Is this right and can I support it, or should I oppose it at every
opportunity, and any laws which support it?

------
pmorici
"But if any healing is possible, it would probably start with making the NSA
and its ilk socially unacceptable"

I'm surprised people are suggesting this as a solution. I don't see how
creating an us vs them mentality is helpful here given that when you get down
to it they are basically just folks trying to make a living and feed their
family like any one else. A better and more positive solution could be for a
bunch of private sector companies who opposed what is going on here to get
together and aggressively poach their employees. It's hard to build an evil
empire when all your best engineers have been hired away.

~~~
jlgreco
> _" when you get down to it they are basically just folks trying to make a
> living and feed their family like any one else."_

aka: "The Yuppie Nuremberg Defense"

Anyway, the theory of operation here is that if you create social cost for the
decision to work for the NSA, then the NSA will have a more difficult time
recruiting new mathematicians. Even if you only get 5% of all graduates to
swear to themselves that they won't take a job with the NSA, that is 5% of the
top talent that the NSA will no longer be able to recruit.

Your _" better and more positive"_ solution can _and should_ be tried _at the
same time_. We should do both. Ostracize the participants, and welcome them
back into the fold with open arms and juicy salaries if they _' see the error
of their ways'_.

~~~
pekk
NSA is literally Hitler now, is it?

~~~
jlgreco
> _" NSA is literally Hitler now, is it?"_

The _" Yuppie Nuremberg Defense"_ is a pop-culture reference to the movie
_Thank You For Smoking_. In the movie, the phrase is used to describe the
defense _" I've got a mortgage to pay"_, offered up by a lawyer _^W_
spokesperson who worked for large Tobacco firms.

(The _Yuppie Nuremberg Defense_ should not be confused with the _Superior
Orders_ defense (often called the _Nuremberg Defense_ ); with the Yuppie
version the defendant asserts that the listener should excuse them because
they did it for the money, _not_ because they were commanded to.)

So, if we assume that analogies, references, and allusions to history are
verboten, I am _actually_ saying _" The NSA is literally Big Tobacco"_. How
senselessly inflammatory of me.

------
theboss
This is stupid. You severe ties with the NSA but what about the FBI, CIA, DEA,
DISA, DIA, the list goes on. What about contractors who do business for the
NSA? The big primes. Lockheed, Grumman, SAIC, CGIFederal, BAE, Booz, etc.etc.

It's pointless to say you won't do business with one when they are all
interconnected. Coming from someone raised in Beltway culture.

edit: It is also funny when people say things to the effect of "Beyond what
conspiracy theorist could have ever imagined". I'm honestly surprised when
people say they didn't know or expect this was happening.

~~~
undoware
> This is stupid... [there are too many, they are all interconnected].

Really? Ever tried to get in shape? There's always that first step. Also --
quoting someone here who, whatever his faults, did get rid of a lot of
american colonial bullshit -- it does not matter how slowly you go, so long as
you do not stop.

It is very clear that you are a beltway product, and I eagerly anticipate
never doing business with you, never inviting you to a convention, and never
taking your money. Because the guy behind you is getting impatient. NEXT!

~~~
pmorici
Like it or not Silicon Valley is a beltway product too. It's genesis was in
the huge amounts of money that the government showered on universities and
companies in the area during the 60's and 70's. They've diversified some since
but there are still plenty of companies that are supported by it Palantir for
example
[http://www.palantir.com/solutions/](http://www.palantir.com/solutions/)

~~~
jlgreco
So?

I honestly don't know what your point is here. This isn't some sort of _"
'free market' vs 'government', and who gets credit for various achievements"_
discussion.

~~~
pmorici
The point is that the valley isn't an innocent victim here they have in the
past and still do facilitate the surveillance state. To act as if refusing to
deal with anyone involved would only mean uninviting some government employees
from a few conferences and black balling a collection of beltway bandits is
naive. The uncomfortable truth is that you would probably have to stop dealing
with a lot more people and companies than you would be comfortable with.

~~~
jlgreco
Consider the possibility of blackballing anybody who _continues_ to be
involved.

Would that mean blackballing people who continue to work for government
contractors as well? Possibly. I'd say that is left up to the individual
implementor. We don't need to all literally agree on a list of individuals to
blackball. A general trend across some subset of the community would do just
fine. Some people may take it to the extreme, some may only dissociate from a
narrowly defined group of people. This sort of social tension, or pressure,
doesn't need to be engineered with exacting precision. A respected professor
here, an influential ex-boss there, one of your college buddies that you might
consider asking for a recommendation one day... all can contribute to this
ostracism in their own way.

------
netman21
And this: [http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-
stiennon/i...](http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/it-
is-time-for-the-trusted-computer-group-to-repudiate-the-nsa)

------
mmanfrin
Doesn't the NSA employ something in the area of 25% of all Math PHDs in the
US? This will be a tough severance.

~~~
tantalor
[http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-
survey/2010Survey-...](http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-
survey/2010Survey-NewDoctorates-Supp-TableE1.pdf)

Looks like under 5% of new PhD grads take a government job.

~~~
monsterix
> ... making the NSA and its ilk socially unacceptable — just as, in the days
> of my youth, working for the KGB was socially unacceptable for many in the
> Soviet Union.

This could harm that interested 5% as well. At least I hope so.

------
xacaxulu
This is the intellectually honest thing to do. Bravo to the people who stand
up to illegal government operations.

------
e3pi
The AMS needs a `Society of Concerned Mathematicians'. Collectively, it could
voice and lobby with authority in DC. Neal Koblitz, of Elliptic Curve
Cryptography, has been doing humanitarian crypto outreach for political
dissent in Central America for decades.

