
NSA Watchdog Removed for Whistleblower Retaliation - rosser
http://www.pogo.org/blog/2016/12/intelligence-community-landmark.html
======
suprgeek
So the Watchdog RETALIATED against some one who brought wrongdoing to light...
Isn't this jokers Job Description pretty much the protection of exactly these
whistle blowers ?

The cognitive dissonance here is almost too much to bear

~~~
benevol
> The cognitive dissonance here is almost too much to bear

The cognitive dissonance is now _everywhere_. It permeates our systems.

The _Greatest Country on Earth_ (tm) looking to crucify _the_ defender of
democracy and freedom and effectively forcing him into finding protection in a
communist regime.

Approximately 50% of American citizens are made to believe Snowden is a
traitor.

The list goes on. And the situation has _literally_ reached biblical
proportions. Signs are now on the wall.

~~~
zeveb
> Approximately 50% of American citizens are made to believe Snowden is a
> traitor.

He took highly-classified information to China & Russia. What other word than
'traitor' applies?

He's not ' _the_ defender of democracy and freedom'; he's a criminal, a spy
and — yes — a traitor.

 _Nothing_ he has alleged is illegal or unconstitutional (the Constitution
does not mandate all good things, nor does it forbid all bad things). He
didn't expose massive wrongdoing: he exposed lawful, constitutional
intelligence operations.

I know I'm going to get downvoted to hell, but honestly I don't care: it is
both correct and should not be forgotten that Mr. Snowden broke the law and
violated the trust which his nation put in him.

~~~
ionised
> He took highly-classified information to China & Russia. What other word
> than 'traitor' applies?

Do you guys keep repeating falshoods over and over again even in the face of
evidence to the contrary for a reason? Do you think if you keep spouting lies
they will somehow become true?

He leaked the information to journalists globally. He didn't hand the
information over to China or Russia. Whatever information they might have on
US surveillance operations came from the same leaks the journalists have
chosen to release. Snowden was not in possession of any documents by the time
he arrived in Russia.

> he's a criminal, a spy and — yes — a traitor.

A criminal under the espionage act yes, but he's also a whistleblower that is
being denied whisteblower protections.

A spy? I assume you have some proof of this otherwise you are talking out of
your ass.

A traitor? A traitor to his superiors maybe. His loyalty was to the American
people first and foremost, not the government. As yours should be. He betrayed
a secretive, undemocratic practice by an unaccountable government. The people
should be singing his praises because he acted in the very interests of the
Republic and its people, you know that thing you all claim to love and protect
in your weird, cult-like pledges of allegiance that you force your kids to
recite? The fact that you have been convinced by those that don't have your
interests at heart that a man that was trying to help you is your enemy is the
ultimate fucking tragedy here.

------
parenthephobia
> _Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to
> Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do._

I think this says it all. Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal
with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to
explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you
shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the
organization's ability to police itself.

~~~
zeveb
> Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who
> brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's
> okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be
> surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to
> police itself.

You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower
reports is illegal. He could actually be mistaken; in that case explaining to
him why it's okay to do something is _precisely_ the correct action to take.

~~~
logfromblammo
Generally speaking, a whistle-blower will be probably want to report something
that he or she believes to be somewhere between blatantly unethical and
morally questionable, and illegality will only come into play under the
assumption that an illegal act is automatically dubious, at minimum.

It could be something like "Mr. X is submitting exactly the same report with
only the dates changed on subsequent days to meet his analysis quotas". That's
legal, but unethical.

Now, the whistle-keeper should be expected to _at least_ investigate the facts
as reported by the whistle-blower, rather than say, "You didn't really see
what you saw. Maybe Mr. X actually did redo the analysis work on subsequent
days and just coincidentally got the same results? Nothing to see here; case
closed."

The whistle-keeper has a duty to anonymize the source by independently
investigating, then to determine whether the complaint is actionable, escalate
appropriately, and then tell the original source(s) what was done and why. If
you aren't doing that, you're at best a black hole for complaints, and at
worst a honeypot for snaring employees that won't "go along to get along".
Then potential whistle-blowers will recognize your disingenuous uselessness,
and route around it by going further up the chain of command or leaking to an
outsider.

In order for whistle-blower protection to work, the ethics hotline has to _do
its freaking job_ and be trustworthy.

------
SomeStupidPoint
I sometimes forget that the wheels of government often turn slowly, but they
_do_ turn.

It's unfortunate that so much damage was caused by the time this took (and the
lack of trust from the lower ranks of the leadership), but it sounds like (at
least to some degree) things are improving. I know Im often one of the
harshest critics of the NSA (and related agencies), but it's important to
acknowledge when things are well handled.

I just wish they would help us play a little defense. The nation needs
leadership in transitioning the infrastructure of democracy -- media,
information, social ties, and speech -- to resilient digital platforms. The
military has long produced leaders on which the country could rely, and we're
sorely in need of their service to counter the influence of those who seek to
weaken democracy using technology.

~~~
kazagistar
The whistle-blower is still working at some app store, and the administrator
who illegally crucified him is still on payroll. Meanwhile, thousands of
reports of wrongdoing are "resolved" quietly by that office. What exactly is
getting better?

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Lots of wrongful terminations end with the wronged employee still working
elsewhere. There's limits to what we can do to fix that.

Similarly, the guy is still technically on the payroll pending an appeal to
the head of the DoD, which is a fair procedural step because we don't want
military heads to simply can IGs they don't like.

However, having a high-level civilian panel investigate the behavior of their
IG and having the military head of the agency immediately fire him based on
their report is a serious turn-around on how much of this has been handled to
date.

Even if the civilian authority ultimately reinstates the IG, I suspect that
the same admiral who fired him is making quieter moves to shake up the
military command, who form the backbone of NSA operations.

For a group who used to be referred to as "No Such Agency" to publicly fire
their IG after inviting civilian oversight and inspection is a signal of an
internal shift in policy.

------
kazagistar
> Ellard declared, arguing that the leaker, now a fugitive in Russia, would
> have received the same protections as other NSA employees, who file some one
> thousand reports annually to the agency’s hotline.

Am I misunderstanding this line? It sounds like the NSA is constantly doing
some stuff that many of its own employees find horribly abusive, and then
sweeping the reports under the rug as "resolved". How the hell was this
information meant to engender confidence?

~~~
zeveb
That a thousand reports are filed doesn't mean that a thousand issues are
found, and even where actual issues are found that doesn't mean that they are
all 'horribly abusive.'

The mere fact that someone reports behaviour doesn't mean that a) the
behaviour is criminal or b) the behaviour exists. No doubt people file false
reports, and true reports of legal actions, all the time. Individuals can be
incorrect: that's why there are processes in place to take a clear look at
allegations and determine their veracity.

~~~
kabdib
How many organizations do you know that have a thousand whistleblower issues a
year?

It's a pretty interesting number, and worthwhile comparing to organizations of
similar size.

~~~
sverige
I'm no fan of the NSA, but the number of reports means nothing if a large
percentage of them don't actually involve them doing anything "wrong."

A friend is a regional HR director at a large corporation I used to work for
(120k employees). There was an ethics hotline to report bad behavior, and he
saw most of the complaints that came through for his region. Most were
groundless.

In fact, one was a report on me because I wouldn't exclude a poor customer
survey score for one of my indirect reports. That score affected her ranking
for raises, etc.

When that went nowhere, she reported me to the FBI. Not even kidding. Some
people are nuts, and some nuts file lots of reports.

~~~
kabdib
On the other hand, a large number of whistleblower reports is an interesting
signal. You can probably do a rough comparison with other organizations (even
spook orgs) and use that to get a sense if things are going sour; order of
magnitude matters.

------
discardorama
On a tangential note:

> _Meanwhile, the ICIG’s handling of what began as a whistleblower complaint
> against Ellard sends an encouraging signal to those who may report
> wrongdoing at 17 US intelligence agencies_

We have 17 intelligence agencies?!??

~~~
rflrob
Wikipedia only reports 16 [0], but you're looking at each of the armed forces
separately having their own, as well as the DIA, plus departments like State
and Energy, the FBI, and the CIA. Each has their own particular remit, but
among other things, this is why we created a Director of National Intelligence
after 9/11 to (hopefully) better coordinate among them.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_C...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community)

~~~
ajdlinux
The 17 count probably includes ODNI itself sitting atop the other 16.

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advisedwang
You would think it is the NSAs best interest to treat people who report issues
within the organisation well, so that they don't go externally.

~~~
sitkack
Not just treat the people well, but address the problems exposed. The NSA
shouldn't really address problems with the NSA, whistleblowers should report
to Congress.

------
andrewclunn
Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. One
wonders if the guy's job description basically contained, "Stop leaks of NSA
overreach, while advocating for those who have concerns about NSA overreach."

~~~
dTal
Kind of like how the NSA's job description is "Guard the security of
communications technologies and encryption standards. Also, hack everyone."

------
jaclaz
I cannot but read this: > Ellard declared, arguing that the leaker, now a
fugitive in Russia, would have received the same protections as other NSA
employees,

as "the _same_ protection _as_ ", i.e. none.

