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If I were to dedicate any time to helping anyone, I feel like my time would be better spent helping the Tor Project than helping the US Government. I know I'm

If I were to dedicate any time to helping anyone, I feel like my time would be better spent helping the Tor Project than helping the US Government. I know I'm not alone here, either.

allworknoplay 11y ago
I share the philosophy, but a) this isn't volunteering, it's a job, and b) massively streamlining service delivery helps a LOT of people. They're not facilitating spying or drone death, and they're actually cutting traditional overpriced shitty contractors from the mix, which is good.
- nacin 11y ago
  There are a lot of really complex, systemic factors that can help explain why the government has gotten to where it is. I'll just note that on my project, I work with a lot of really awesome contractors every day.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    Have you replaced any terrible ones? ;) On the flipside, I'm not sure how much this vouch counts, considering you previously worked on the WP core and it takes a long time for the WP core to change anything (e.g. the minimum PHP version). Maybe your standards for "slow bureaucracy" and others' are different?
  - allworknoplay 11y ago
    That's totally fair; I've done minimal work around government, and I don't claim to be an expert on this at all. I just know that successful contractors are rewarded disproportionately for their ability to navigate bureaucracy. Also, that was especially the case with healthcare.gov.
niels_olson 11y ago
Tor was started at the Naval Research Laboratory. There are smart, hard-working people in government service. The politicians, however, often have monied interests involved in preventing efficiency (pork barrel politics). Because of the pork barrelling, you will definitely meet people at every level, but especially at lower levels, who play "rice bowl" politics: "woah, there's paperwork to fill out for that, and it's my job to fill out that paperwork. Don't you do that until I fill out this paperwork." Ok, how long will that take? "I can probably have it done in a week." It's a single half-sheet of paper, are you sure it will take a week? "Yeah, maybe two." But from the politician's perspective, a job's a job, so he'll have that job for a long time.
vippy 11y ago
Paul Syverson (one of the authors of the Tor design paper - https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-design.pdf https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-des...) actually came by the GSA about a month ago to talk about privacy. The geeks are listening.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Until they indict James Clapper for perjury and grant Snowden immunity, I refuse to assist the government in any way beyond paying taxes. http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com
  - res0nat0r 11y ago
    https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/01/clapper-ssci/ https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/01/clapper-ssci/
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      He didn't understand the question? I find that really hard to swallow. > As a result, the Committee itself became complicit in an act of public deception. Good, let's imprison them all for perjury then, not just Clapper.
      - res0nat0r 11y ago
        No, they already knew the answer to the question which he fully understood, and he lied about the program because it was top secret, and they were using a public hearing to try and out the program. They already knew about the program and even so if they wanted to truly find out without breaking national security they could have held a closed door session.
        schoen 11y ago
        I'm wondering about the sources of laws and norms about "oversight". On the one hand, Congress and committees have a subpoena power and individual members have an immunity for what they reveal on the floor. On the other hand, the Executive manages to enforce security clearance requirements against individual Congressional staff (not against the members themselves, I believe -- though they get them to follow procedures for information security that are analogous to what a regular government employee would do). And the committee members seem to have a pretty strong tradition of keeping classified information secret -- but isn't that just a tradition? Couldn't a member just decide that the public ought to know something in particular and hence reveal it? Is it a tactical decision about hoping to achieve better cooperation with witnesses and sources in the long term? (I'm also wondering where the whole concept and structure of oversight comes from -- I think historically and constitutionally it has to do with the budget power but it seems like it's developed pretty far beyond that.)
magicmu 11y ago
My thoughts exactly -- I would much rather be helping raise awareness of government surveillance and developing measures to abate it, instead of giving them even more technological power. The front-end of services like healthcare and immigration can be improved all we want, but that doesn't affect any fundamental change in the way things are done (it's a fancy website, but you'll still be waiting 5-10 years for your green card). I struggle to see why anyone who is technologically savvy would want to do this.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  There's literally millions of pending green card applications. You don't think good IT would help? On a much smaller scale, I still remember the thrill of renewing my vehicle registration online, as compared to the slow, slow, slow DMV.
  - howterrible 11y ago
    Why do you want the government to be more efficient, so they can purchase more bombs, build more black sites to torture, have more cash to hand out to 'moderate' Syrian rebels? You want to further empower a government which seeks complete domination of its citizens and of the world.
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      Let me guess- anarchist?
      - howterrible 11y ago
        Does it matter? You have no real response than childish name calling. Instead you rather forget the awful crimes the US engages in on a routine basis, as if helping them free one hand isn't the same as assisting the other hand in murder and torture.
        sliverstorm 11y ago
ritchiea 11y ago
It's really not fair to lump all of government in with the NSA. "Helping the US government" in the case of the digital service means things like making it easier for immigrants to apply for a green card by building a web application that replaces paper forms. What the digital service is actually doing is helping US citizens receive government services more efficiently. Which is completely different from "helping the government" the way you phrase it.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  > It's really not fair to lump all of government in with the NSA. Does the US Digital Service hire people who strictly refuse to assist in any way with any of the operations of the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, DEA, or any other oppressive agency? If so, I'd reconsider, but I don't think they would hire me under those terms. And if they did, they wouldn't appreciate me saying "Fuck off!" if they tried to assign me to one of the projects to prop up one of these agencies?
  - ritchiea 11y ago
    I can't answer that, you'd have to ask them but everyone I spoke to at the digital service said their work was specifically delivering government services to citizens. I don't think they work with the FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS etc. It's not a catchall organization that works with every federal government department.
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      Okay, thanks for the clarification. If I join them and suddenly end up unemployed/homeless, HN will know why.
    - konklone 11y ago
      > I don't think they work with the FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS etc. Just a small note, immigration is DHS.
  - mdickers47 11y ago
    (Member of USDS) - The answer is no, sorry. We prioritize assignments based on their potential to do the most good for the largest number of people, and do not pressure anybody to work against their conscience. But we can't reconcile rigid individual pre-conceived ideologies with the need to run a coherent and diverse group. Consider the opposite scenario: should we hire somebody who "strictly refuses to assist in any way with providing government handouts to undeserving moochers?" Such a person would be an obvious liability, given current priorities. If I hired the first group and not the second, then we'd become an explicitly partisan and ideological operation, that still has to work with a Democrat administration and a Republican Congress. That's a whole new level of pain that I need like a hole in the head.
zacharycohn 11y ago
Fwiw, the US Government is pretty big. And it's not like we all get secret decoder rings and meet up once a year to figure out how to trick the public in the next year. There's a lot of organizations with a lot of different goals.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  As I said in another post, the scope of my boycott is the entire government. :)
  - zacharycohn 11y ago
    Up to you, of course. But I've worked with a lot of good people doing a lot of good work for the people of the world.
    - sarciszewski 11y ago
      When Clapper and the rest of the SIC rots in prison for their lies against the American people, and Snowden and Manning are free, I'll reconsider. Until then, I'll walk my own path and do good my own way.
      - panic 11y ago
        Why not boycott the US entirely, then? The American public is also part of the government to the extent that they vote and participate in public debate. And I'm sure most government agencies knew just as much as the rest of the country about what the NSA was up to before Snowden.
  - niels_olson 11y ago
    Best of luck avoiding roads, sewer, the mail, air traffic control, etc, and all their side effects :)

If I were to dedicate any time to helping anyone, I feel like my time would be better spent helping the Tor Project than helping the US Government. I know I'm not alone here, either.

allworknoplay 11y ago

I share the philosophy, but a) this isn't volunteering, it's a job, and b) massively streamlining service delivery helps a LOT of people. They're not facilitating spying or drone death, and they're actually cutting traditional overpriced shitty contractors from the mix, which is good.

nacin 11y ago
There are a lot of really complex, systemic factors that can help explain why the government has gotten to where it is. I'll just note that on my project, I work with a lot of really awesome contractors every day.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Have you replaced any terrible ones? ;) On the flipside, I'm not sure how much this vouch counts, considering you previously worked on the WP core and it takes a long time for the WP core to change anything (e.g. the minimum PHP version). Maybe your standards for "slow bureaucracy" and others' are different?
- allworknoplay 11y ago
  That's totally fair; I've done minimal work around government, and I don't claim to be an expert on this at all. I just know that successful contractors are rewarded disproportionately for their ability to navigate bureaucracy. Also, that was especially the case with healthcare.gov.

niels_olson 11y ago

Tor was started at the Naval Research Laboratory. There are smart, hard-working people in government service. The politicians, however, often have monied interests involved in preventing efficiency (pork barrel politics). Because of the pork barrelling, you will definitely meet people at every level, but especially at lower levels, who play "rice bowl" politics: "woah, there's paperwork to fill out for that, and it's my job to fill out that paperwork. Don't you do that until I fill out this paperwork." Ok, how long will that take? "I can probably have it done in a week." It's a single half-sheet of paper, are you sure it will take a week? "Yeah, maybe two." But from the politician's perspective, a job's a job, so he'll have that job for a long time.

vippy 11y ago

Paul Syverson (one of the authors of the Tor design paper - https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-design.pdf https://svn.torproject.org/svn/projects/design-paper/tor-des...) actually came by the GSA about a month ago to talk about privacy. The geeks are listening.

sarciszewski 11y ago
Until they indict James Clapper for perjury and grant Snowden immunity, I refuse to assist the government in any way beyond paying taxes. http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com http://www.hasjamesclapperbeenindictedyet.com
- res0nat0r 11y ago
  https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/01/clapper-ssci/ https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/01/clapper-ssci/
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    He didn't understand the question? I find that really hard to swallow. > As a result, the Committee itself became complicit in an act of public deception. Good, let's imprison them all for perjury then, not just Clapper.
    - res0nat0r 11y ago
      No, they already knew the answer to the question which he fully understood, and he lied about the program because it was top secret, and they were using a public hearing to try and out the program. They already knew about the program and even so if they wanted to truly find out without breaking national security they could have held a closed door session.
      - schoen 11y ago
        I'm wondering about the sources of laws and norms about "oversight". On the one hand, Congress and committees have a subpoena power and individual members have an immunity for what they reveal on the floor. On the other hand, the Executive manages to enforce security clearance requirements against individual Congressional staff (not against the members themselves, I believe -- though they get them to follow procedures for information security that are analogous to what a regular government employee would do). And the committee members seem to have a pretty strong tradition of keeping classified information secret -- but isn't that just a tradition? Couldn't a member just decide that the public ought to know something in particular and hence reveal it? Is it a tactical decision about hoping to achieve better cooperation with witnesses and sources in the long term? (I'm also wondering where the whole concept and structure of oversight comes from -- I think historically and constitutionally it has to do with the budget power but it seems like it's developed pretty far beyond that.)

magicmu 11y ago

My thoughts exactly -- I would much rather be helping raise awareness of government surveillance and developing measures to abate it, instead of giving them even more technological power. The front-end of services like healthcare and immigration can be improved all we want, but that doesn't affect any fundamental change in the way things are done (it's a fancy website, but you'll still be waiting 5-10 years for your green card). I struggle to see why anyone who is technologically savvy would want to do this.

sliverstorm 11y ago
There's literally millions of pending green card applications. You don't think good IT would help? On a much smaller scale, I still remember the thrill of renewing my vehicle registration online, as compared to the slow, slow, slow DMV.
- howterrible 11y ago
  Why do you want the government to be more efficient, so they can purchase more bombs, build more black sites to torture, have more cash to hand out to 'moderate' Syrian rebels? You want to further empower a government which seeks complete domination of its citizens and of the world.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    Let me guess- anarchist?
    - howterrible 11y ago
      Does it matter? You have no real response than childish name calling. Instead you rather forget the awful crimes the US engages in on a routine basis, as if helping them free one hand isn't the same as assisting the other hand in murder and torture.
      - sliverstorm 11y ago

ritchiea 11y ago

It's really not fair to lump all of government in with the NSA. "Helping the US government" in the case of the digital service means things like making it easier for immigrants to apply for a green card by building a web application that replaces paper forms. What the digital service is actually doing is helping US citizens receive government services more efficiently. Which is completely different from "helping the government" the way you phrase it.

sarciszewski 11y ago
> It's really not fair to lump all of government in with the NSA. Does the US Digital Service hire people who strictly refuse to assist in any way with any of the operations of the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, DEA, or any other oppressive agency? If so, I'd reconsider, but I don't think they would hire me under those terms. And if they did, they wouldn't appreciate me saying "Fuck off!" if they tried to assign me to one of the projects to prop up one of these agencies?
- ritchiea 11y ago
  I can't answer that, you'd have to ask them but everyone I spoke to at the digital service said their work was specifically delivering government services to citizens. I don't think they work with the FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS etc. It's not a catchall organization that works with every federal government department.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    Okay, thanks for the clarification. If I join them and suddenly end up unemployed/homeless, HN will know why.
  - konklone 11y ago
    > I don't think they work with the FBI, CIA, DEA, DHS etc. Just a small note, immigration is DHS.
- mdickers47 11y ago
  (Member of USDS) - The answer is no, sorry. We prioritize assignments based on their potential to do the most good for the largest number of people, and do not pressure anybody to work against their conscience. But we can't reconcile rigid individual pre-conceived ideologies with the need to run a coherent and diverse group. Consider the opposite scenario: should we hire somebody who "strictly refuses to assist in any way with providing government handouts to undeserving moochers?" Such a person would be an obvious liability, given current priorities. If I hired the first group and not the second, then we'd become an explicitly partisan and ideological operation, that still has to work with a Democrat administration and a Republican Congress. That's a whole new level of pain that I need like a hole in the head.

zacharycohn 11y ago

Fwiw, the US Government is pretty big. And it's not like we all get secret decoder rings and meet up once a year to figure out how to trick the public in the next year. There's a lot of organizations with a lot of different goals.

sarciszewski 11y ago
As I said in another post, the scope of my boycott is the entire government. :)
- zacharycohn 11y ago
  Up to you, of course. But I've worked with a lot of good people doing a lot of good work for the people of the world.
  - sarciszewski 11y ago
    When Clapper and the rest of the SIC rots in prison for their lies against the American people, and Snowden and Manning are free, I'll reconsider. Until then, I'll walk my own path and do good my own way.
    - panic 11y ago
      Why not boycott the US entirely, then? The American public is also part of the government to the extent that they vote and participate in public debate. And I'm sure most government agencies knew just as much as the rest of the country about what the NSA was up to before Snowden.
- niels_olson 11y ago
  Best of luck avoiding roads, sewer, the mail, air traffic control, etc, and all their side effects :)