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Lieutenant General David Morrison of the Australian Army was giving a strong message[1] against against sexism when he said, "The standard you walk past, i

by pdkl95 11y ago

Lieutenant General David Morrison of the Australian Army was giving a strong message[1] against against sexism when he said, "The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept." People working at GCHQ (or the NSA) may not be working specifically on an unsavory project, but they are still choosing to support the organization. Also, how do they know the real nature of their project? In a compartmentalized ("need to know") environment, it can be hard or impossible to know the real purpose of any particular task. Jacob Appelbaum gave a very interesting talk[2] about a month ago where he specifically addressed[3] this problem (among other topics - the entire talk is worth watching). He even gets a question from someone from the NSA[4] who was in the audience, who also asked about this problem. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4#t=3160 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4#t=3160 [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4#t=4028 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4#t=4028

johncolanduoni 11y ago
> In a compartmentalized ("need to know") environment, it can be hard or impossible to know the real purpose of any particular task. There are definitely a lot of areas that wouldn't suffer from this problem. I'd be surprised if a cryptographer couldn't distinguish between working on civilian signals intelligence vs military (since the first will be using published ciphers). Any how far does the scope of assisting the organization go? If you work for the FBI in a non-surveillance capacity, are you still part of the machine since the FBI and NSA cooperate on counter-terrorism? Should everybody at the FBI with a conscience quit because some in the organization have taken advantage of overextended surveillance powers?

by pdkl95 11y ago

johncolanduoni 11y ago

> In a compartmentalized ("need to know") environment, it can be hard or impossible to know the real purpose of any particular task. There are definitely a lot of areas that wouldn't suffer from this problem. I'd be surprised if a cryptographer couldn't distinguish between working on civilian signals intelligence vs military (since the first will be using published ciphers). Any how far does the scope of assisting the organization go? If you work for the FBI in a non-surveillance capacity, are you still part of the machine since the FBI and NSA cooperate on counter-terrorism? Should everybody at the FBI with a conscience quit because some in the organization have taken advantage of overextended surveillance powers?