This link is an internal column from an NSA community newsletter. The SIGINT Philosopher was a regular editorial in this newsletter, and we are lucky to have a

This link is an internal column from an NSA community newsletter. The SIGINT Philosopher was a regular editorial in this newsletter, and we are lucky to have a couple columns in full. These documents were considered classified. I highly suggest everyone reads the primary source documents in this link-- all of them, not just that single episode from the SIGINT Philosopher. The purpose of this column is to propagandize workers at the NSA and help them to rationalize their complicity in totalitarian surveillance. It's pretty disgusting that the NSA brass realize that what they are doing will create cognitive dissonance within their workforce, yet instead of addressing it, opt to deceive internally (and externally) instead. This purpose becomes exceedingly clear when you read the actual columns. In the column I linked, the author describes how if the public only knew a few things about his personal life they would be scared or disgusted, but complete transparency would leave them nothing to fear. This thought is supposedly in reaction to anxiety that the author had as a result of a fumbled polygraph test that he was subjected to. The author claims to be a civil libertarian, but of course, it's impossible to be a civil libertarian and also be in favor of a panopticon. A panopticon allows no true freedom, as behavior changes when it is known to be watched by a third party. The NSA hires internal propaganda artists to keep their analysts quiet and happy. We should study this propaganda carefully so that it may be unraveled, and their surveillance apparatus destroyed.