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Comment by klabb3 | Hacker News Reader

NSA, CIA and perhaps intelligence at large, seem to be quite radically changing their media tactics. There’s been a lot of “former employees” who are talking quite openly about the intelligence world.

I wonder if they’re trying to attract new talent, in a world where our best manipulators are more attracted to higher-paying corp gigs, and analytical types are lost to finance, consulting and tech. Especially if their workforces are aging and stuck in the past. Perhaps they’re trying to expand as well, in a world where fast & cheap intel gathering is critical to stay on top against more agile counterparties in say Israel, Russia and China.

The only reason I don’t believe is the stated goal, of “just highlighting the work of these incredible civil servants”. Something’s going on, but what?

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My Naive take:

I think its apart of a media campaign to highlight the best parts of the agency to the public, which can be used for attracting talent, convincing voters that the agency is good, and convincing leaders the agency is necessary.

Additionally, its also a defensive move against other powers that want to discredit the NSA and sway public opinion. Many security professionals talk about cyberspace being the new territory for warfare, and there is a significant amount of astroturfing, manipulation and falsification of information which occurs in social media. No one else is going to try to make the NSA look good besides the NSA.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the NSA, just that the basics of the increased media coming from their office is to attempt to make the NSA look better to all parties who have some level of power over them.

> Additionally, its also a defensive move against other powers that want to discredit the NSA and sway public opinion.

That’s a really good point. I guess being proactive in establishing a good or at least plausibly good reputation is a great proactive measure to prevent say a future scandal from hitting them hard. Right now the narrative seems to be along the lines of “we did some questionable things in the past, but don’t mind that too much because it’s a really important job that does a lot of good protecting national interests, and besides, look at the other govts they’re clearly doing worse things”. Which isn’t that bad of a strategy, to be fair.

But they're still doing those questionable things right now. They and the FBI openly fought to preserve the legal right to continue doing these constitutionally dubious actions!

There are no shortage of Feds who evangelize the NSA who don't actually work for the NSA.

Of particular frustration to me are lawyers who cannot conceive of any issue with the NSA's practices because they've filled put paperwork and repeatedly handwave away concerns due to many a lawyer's lack of comprehension of how surveillance technology works.

Doesn't help the NSA representatives dismiss concerns to lawyers by repeatedly saying what they do is so complicated to understand at a high level followed by explanations that wholly ignore root of any controversy surrounding them.

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