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Comment by forgotAgain | Hacker News Reader

As an insider you have a different view from others. I wonder though if you do not see the forest for the trees. Does knowing more than others about the inner workings of the NSA make the effects of the NSA actions on the country less apparent to you?

But, is it more likely that the 4+ million security clearance holders are in on some large conspiracy to take away our freedoms, or that a disgruntled worker wanted to watch the world burn a little.

Those aren't the only two choices for what is happening here. There is also the idea of a government bureaucracy without a credible internal counter balance to its desire for more and more information. I have to wonder if an analyst there ever got promoted for saying something is wrong. That the something in question goes against the People's right to privacy.

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With the CIA, FBI, and other organizations I've worked for, you'd probably be right. The NSA is the only meritocracy that I've encountered in government work, although I only have a total of 10 years of experience so I haven't "seen it all" per se.

When you work for the NSA, you can take a managerial route or a technical route for promotion. This means that you can achieve the highest rank (GS/GG-15) being either a manager or just being good at your job.

I once wrote a report which countered reports that other people had written, resulting in some angry phone calls demanding me to redact my correct report so as to not make them look bad. I responded with a no to all of them, and when circumstances proved the validity of my analysis, I was rewarded for standing my ground and not punished.

All in all, the people working there on the whole cared about doing what is right, is what I found. In that light, NSA stood in stark contrast to the FBI culture of major bureaucracy and lazy/inefficient practices.

As an example of the culture, I learned to program at NSA because when I said I was interested they said, "Here's a book and some servers.".

IMO, that's the tragedy of this whole situation. We're blaming the civil servants for policy decisions.

I think the core problem here is that the scope of what the NSA does was blown out dramatically, because the nature of the threat shifted from the Soviet bloc to various extremist groups that may or may not have state affiliation.

So we went from a world where we were spying on the Russians (which nobody has an issue with) to a world where we're spying on people with extremist beliefs, who could live next door.

We expanded the scope, depth and breadth of the mission, but there isn't a level of oversight present that is trustworthy. When we ask the question "Who watches the watchers?", the answer is both nebulous (in that you never get a straight answer to any question from anyone) and antithetical (secret courts, blurred and cozy executive/judicial lines) to the way that the American system works otherwise.

> So we went from a world where we were spying on the Russians (which nobody has an issue with)

I used to think that was true, but witness the reaction here on HN to the very idea that the NSA might still by spying on China or Medvedev.

Thanks for your perspective. The point I'd like addressed, is that everyone could be working to do what was right, but still build infrastructure that is dangerous to democracy.

If the infrastructure is put in place to monitor everyone's communications and infer all their contacts, it may be used for good at the present time, but it will be the perfect tool to quash dissent in the future.

People die and the world changes with time. Misguided people have taken positions of extreme power in the USA within the memory of current generations. How can you be sure that won't happen again, that another Nixon won't misuse the tools of state authority, this time so vastly powerful that the misuse would be guaranteed to produce some sort of blackmail information on half the population?

Ok you touched my heart, lookup Breno Salgado in your prism(I'm brazilian so no need to hold yourself!) and you can have all my data and conversations, lets get to know each other better! Kisses, <3

Well, he would need to get a National Security Letter or a FISA warrant to do that, so it may take awhile to get back to you. :P

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