

An Open Letter to My Former NSA Colleagues - pivnicek
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/08/nsa_domestic_spying_mathematicians_should_speak_out.html

======
bazillion
I can understand the public outrage over what the implications are for things
that have been circulated in the press. The author, however, is guilty of a
very terrible error in my opinion -- he has walked the halls of Ft. Meade and
seen how the NSA operated, and yet now he believes that the NSA operates 180
degrees from when he joined. He's essentially casting aspersions at those who
have joined the NSA since his leaving, and those who still yet join, saying
"Shame on you, shame on you for not having a higher moral standard!". Well,
you sir can politely go fuck yourself.

Those who have served in the military or as civilians in the department of
defense have given up a lot of their personal liberties in order to provide
for the common defense. Service. It's not a concept I expect you to understand
if you're reading this from a Starbucks while pitching your new startup idea
to your friends. It entails willingly giving up the ability to talk to your
friends and loved ones about _anything_ you do -- you often end up telling
people that you do some mundane job because you can't answer their followup
questions. It means getting called into work or off of vacation because your
small piece of the world has gone to shit, and not having anyone to vent to
about it. It also means placing the very notion of where you live in the hands
of the government, and sometimes being forced to be away from your family for
years. It is all these things and more, but it is not _ever_ something one
should be made to feel ashamed of doing.

There are thousands of employees right now in the NSA who aren't even allowed
to come to their own defense on the matter, because DoD has deemed that
speaking about the situation is a security violation. They have to sit there
and endure that the people around them who are very ignorant as to what it is
NSA even does, just plain get it wrong. Well, as my NSA/CIA security clearance
finally closed out yesterday, I have no qualms about speaking on their behalf.

The public is completely and utterly wrong about the motivations of the NSA
and the information they were provided as "fact". Everything has been skewed
to paint a picture that is damning and I would definitely be angry about if it
were true, but it just isn't. There is a culture of protecting American civil
liberties in the NSA. It's almost pathological -- anything that can
potentially affect a US person is given extremely wide berth. There are major
auditing and oversight mechanisms in place in case someone were to ever run a
query that affected a US person. So the notion that in 2 years, the
intelligent, passionate, and devoted people I came to know have somehow
flipped around and violate rights willy-nilly now is a ludicrous idea. If this
were true, we would be seeing a thousand whisteblowers (true whistleblowers,
not Snowden) coming out of the woodwork trying to correct the system.

It is not true that the government doesn't care about the rights of
individuals just because you want it to be true. Those that are employed are
individuals too, and are not being magically compelled to carry terrible
secrets against their individual moral codes and ethics. They are carrying out
a mission of defense which extends into the technology of this century -- even
cars have had 100 years for us to deliberate and come up with the current
system of laws that govern that technology. While the legal framework for
their actions are up for debate, their collective character is not.

The current public climate surrounding those who have been in the intelligence
community hearkens back to days of activists yelling "Baby killer! Baby
killer!" at passing by Vietnam vets. A few of you who are self-reflecting will
at some point in your life when the intelligence practices becomes more
public, regret your outrage and overreaction at this time. I feel like the
rest will not, because it was a passing trend and never really affected you
directly either way.

I would like to thank those that have served (including the author) and
continue to serve for their part in upholding their oath. It may seem like no
one gets you, but a few out here in the public sector do. In the cycle of the
public raging against government powers, and then asking why the government
didn't do more about x situation, the people in service get lost in the mix.

I hope that regardless of who you are reading this, that you have the ability
to empathize with those who are outside of your personal story, with whom you
will never have any interaction with. That I happen to know some of their
faces doesn't change the fact that I don't assume the faceless ones are
perpetrating a great conspiracy against the American people. I just assume
that they're serving.

~~~
gglitch
Parent makes the case in favor of sympathy for public servants very
eloquently, but constructs his argument by appealing to how much we don't know
about what's really going on in the NSA--but the American public shouldn't
have to take the NSA or its sympathizers on faith. It may not be reasonable to
expect full disclosure, but the current level of disclosure is insulting. It's
easy to believe that most civil servants have our best interests at heart; but
we shouldn't have to just believe it. Suitable oversight should provide all
necessary evidence.

~~~
bazillion
Oversight is definitely the key to limiting the possibility of government
overreach, but it is wrong on the populace's part to think that just because
they aren't privy to the oversight that it isn't there.

There is much the same problem with those who work in the political realm in
D.C. They are constantly derided as do-nothing on a macro scale, but on an
individual basis a lot of effort is put into how laws are constructed and
amended. This is analogue to the situation in the intelligence community -- a
lot of work is done by individuals and the organization they are a part of to
preserve civil liberties, but disclosing the nature of their collection
abilities in the interest of the transparency of their protection of civil
liberties is absolutely counter-productive. A big difference between the two,
is that the political worker can disclose their work while the intelligence
worker can not.

I'm not denying that there are instances of overreach, but I'm merely making
the point that the framework for protection of civil liberties is not a piece
of glass that shatters on the first stone thrown against it. It is an organic
process, which is subject to upper and lower bounds in order to come to rest
at a medium level with which both the public is suitably comfortable, and
which gets the job done.

~~~
gglitch
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, but respectfully, this seems to still be
begging the question.

> ...it is wrong on the populace's part to think that just because they aren't
> privy to the oversight that it isn't there.

The populace seems to be decreasingly comfortable with the information
currently available, especially when much of that information seems
contradictory or deliberately deceptive. I have no doubt that you're right,
that a more complete picture would obviate a lot of the public's concerns; so
it's sensible for the public to demand a more complete picture.

------
LOSindignados
Seife's book "Zero" totally blew my mind a few years back. Powerful words:

"If this is really what the agency stands for, I am sorry to have helped in
whatever small way that I did."

------
jacquesm
What bothers me is that there is just 'us' and 'them'. There is not even the
hint of allies or any shade of gray in all this, you are either part of the
United States or you are fair game.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
What do you mean? US citizens are fair game too.

~~~
jacquesm
They are but they're not supposed to be. At least, they weren't. I know that's
apparently changed but that is a funny thing to have such a flap over, if you
feel that it is somehow bad in principle to target your own civilians when
they have not (yet) done anything wrong what is it that makes it a-ok to do
the same on foreigners? I can't follow that reasoning.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
That wasn't my argument. I hope they burn the whole thing down. It is a
terrible embarrassment and shame on the whole country.

------
ferdo
If a nation or a group was acting towards American citizens the way the NSA
(and other TLAs) does, we'd probably assume they were at war with us.

~~~
grecy
Now you know how everyone outside the United States feels.

~~~
ferdo
I've been aware of it for years. My only consolation in the events of the past
few months is that a lot of my friends no longer view my opinions as being in
left field.

