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NSA Watchdog Removed for Whistleblower Retaliation

212 points by rosser 10y ago

parenthephobia 10y ago
> Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do. I think this says it all. Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- zeveb 10y ago
  > Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself. You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. He could actually be mistaken; in that case explaining to him why it's okay to do something is precisely the correct action to take.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Generally speaking, a whistle-blower will be probably want to report something that he or she believes to be somewhere between blatantly unethical and morally questionable, and illegality will only come into play under the assumption that an illegal act is automatically dubious, at minimum. It could be something like "Mr. X is submitting exactly the same report with only the dates changed on subsequent days to meet his analysis quotas". That's legal, but unethical. Now, the whistle-keeper should be expected to at least investigate the facts as reported by the whistle-blower, rather than say, "You didn't really see what you saw. Maybe Mr. X actually did redo the analysis work on subsequent days and just coincidentally got the same results? Nothing to see here; case closed." The whistle-keeper has a duty to anonymize the source by independently investigating, then to determine whether the complaint is actionable, escalate appropriately, and then tell the original source(s) what was done and why. If you aren't doing that, you're at best a black hole for complaints, and at worst a honeypot for snaring employees that won't "go along to get along". Then potential whistle-blowers will recognize your disingenuous uselessness, and route around it by going further up the chain of command or leaking to an outsider. In order for whistle-blower protection to work, the ethics hotline has to do its freaking job and be trustworthy.
  - gizmo686 10y ago
    >You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. In this particular case, we know that (some of) the activity reported was illegal. The fact that, even with this being known publicly, the "watchdog"'s response is still to explain why the activity is okay is a problem.
  - parenthephobia 10y ago
    It is generally accepted that at least some of the activities Snowden was concerned about were in fact illegal. Now, Snowden isn't a judge, nor would he have had complete knowledge of what was going on. He couldn't have known for sure that the activities were illegal. But, unless you take the view that Snowden maliciously revealed activities he actually believed were legal, he at least had reasonable suspicions that they weren't. The job of somebody to whom whistleblowers report is to take that seriously. Perhaps, in many cases, the reasonable suspicions are unfounded. Perhaps there is a byzantine legal framework in place that makes apparently illegal activity technical legal. Perhaps Snowden's concerns had already been raised by others through the proper channels, investigated, and found to be unfounded. Regardless of that, we know that in this case some of the things Snowden reported on were illegal, and that going by the "proper channels" did not result in illegal activity being detected and stopped. Unless we imagine that Snowden is lying about having tried to report it to the agency first, and that nobody else amongst the hundreds of thousands - speculatively: the true number is classified - of NSA employees and contractors had both the knowledge of illegal activity and enough concern about it to report it through the proper channels. Whatever the case. The part of the NSA that is tasked with detecting and preventing illegal operations hasn't done that for what appear to be some pretty big operations. Either it didn't care that the operations were illegal, it didn't know they were illegal, or it didn't even know they were happening. None of those possibilities reflect well on the watchdog.
andrewclunn 10y ago
Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. One wonders if the guy's job description basically contained, "Stop leaks of NSA overreach, while advocating for those who have concerns about NSA overreach."
- dTal 10y ago
  Kind of like how the NSA's job description is "Guard the security of communications technologies and encryption standards. Also, hack everyone."
- snovv_crash 10y ago
  Sounds to me like he was a honeypot.
- croon 10y ago
  Sure, keep your job or uphold the fundementals of democracy. Although he lost his job explicitly for optimizing towards the former. If he instead did the latter he would be less likely to be fired, because that would have looked as bad as the leaks he tried to contain. If I'm not tripping anywhere, the only sound choice is the latter, both morally and professionally.
suprgeek 10y ago
So the Watchdog RETALIATED against some one who brought wrongdoing to light... Isn't this jokers Job Description pretty much the protection of exactly these whistle blowers ? The cognitive dissonance here is almost too much to bear
- benevol 10y ago
  > The cognitive dissonance here is almost too much to bear The cognitive dissonance is now everywhere. It permeates our systems. The Greatest Country on Earth (tm) looking to crucify the defender of democracy and freedom and effectively forcing him into finding protection in a communist regime. Approximately 50% of American citizens are made to believe Snowden is a traitor. The list goes on. And the situation has literally reached biblical proportions. Signs are now on the wall.
  - hawkice 10y ago
    > And the situation has literally reached biblical proportions. Not sure what part of the bible is literally in proportion here.
    - benevol 10y ago
      J on the cross.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        Did you just say Snowden is equivalent to Jesus?
        benevol 10y ago
        We're crucifying democracy. Is it really that hard to see?
        lichform 10y ago
advisedwang 10y ago
You would think it is the NSAs best interest to treat people who report issues within the organisation well, so that they don't go externally.
- sitkack 10y ago
  Not just treat the people well, but address the problems exposed. The NSA shouldn't really address problems with the NSA, whistleblowers should report to Congress.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
I sometimes forget that the wheels of government often turn slowly, but they do turn. It's unfortunate that so much damage was caused by the time this took (and the lack of trust from the lower ranks of the leadership), but it sounds like (at least to some degree) things are improving. I know Im often one of the harshest critics of the NSA (and related agencies), but it's important to acknowledge when things are well handled. I just wish they would help us play a little defense. The nation needs leadership in transitioning the infrastructure of democracy -- media, information, social ties, and speech -- to resilient digital platforms. The military has long produced leaders on which the country could rely, and we're sorely in need of their service to counter the influence of those who seek to weaken democracy using technology.
- appleflaxen 10y ago
  When the military is willing to whip the public into a media-fear-frenzy about terrorism, rather than speaking about the real numerical size of the risk and why we should focus on any things, they deserve no credit.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    I just don't remotely agree. Firstly, the military isn't one homogenous organization, and can be sharply internally divided in a way they don't often expose to the public. And to a large extent, their message is set by partisan civilian leaders. Secondly, failures in one area doesn't negate progress in another -- and that the leader of the NSA immediately fired their IG when other IGs found an issue with performance is a big deal. That's a fundamental change in policy and accountability to civilian authority. We can't be purely antagonistic to the military. We demanded they change course, and a few years later, they've clearly changed how they handle these matters. For a bureaucracy the size of the DoD, that's lightning speed.
    - zeveb 10y ago
      > That's a fundamental change in policy and accountability to civilian authority. It doesn't sound like a change in policy; it sounds like it's been the policy for quite some time (proposed on 2012, implemented in 2013).
discardorama 10y ago
On a tangential note: > Meanwhile, the ICIG’s handling of what began as a whistleblower complaint against Ellard sends an encouraging signal to those who may report wrongdoing at 17 US intelligence agencies We have 17 intelligence agencies?!??
- rflrob 10y ago
  Wikipedia only reports 16 [0], but you're looking at each of the armed forces separately having their own, as well as the DIA, plus departments like State and Energy, the FBI, and the CIA. Each has their own particular remit, but among other things, this is why we created a Director of National Intelligence after 9/11 to (hopefully) better coordinate among them. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_C...
  - ajdlinux 10y ago
    The 17 count probably includes ODNI itself sitting atop the other 16.
kazagistar 10y ago
> Ellard declared, arguing that the leaker, now a fugitive in Russia, would have received the same protections as other NSA employees, who file some one thousand reports annually to the agency’s hotline. Am I misunderstanding this line? It sounds like the NSA is constantly doing some stuff that many of its own employees find horribly abusive, and then sweeping the reports under the rug as "resolved". How the hell was this information meant to engender confidence?
- zeveb 10y ago
  That a thousand reports are filed doesn't mean that a thousand issues are found, and even where actual issues are found that doesn't mean that they are all 'horribly abusive.' The mere fact that someone reports behaviour doesn't mean that a) the behaviour is criminal or b) the behaviour exists. No doubt people file false reports, and true reports of legal actions, all the time. Individuals can be incorrect: that's why there are processes in place to take a clear look at allegations and determine their veracity.
  - kabdib 10y ago
    How many organizations do you know that have a thousand whistleblower issues a year? It's a pretty interesting number, and worthwhile comparing to organizations of similar size.
    - sverige 10y ago
      I'm no fan of the NSA, but the number of reports means nothing if a large percentage of them don't actually involve them doing anything "wrong." A friend is a regional HR director at a large corporation I used to work for (120k employees). There was an ethics hotline to report bad behavior, and he saw most of the complaints that came through for his region. Most were groundless. In fact, one was a report on me because I wouldn't exclude a poor customer survey score for one of my indirect reports. That score affected her ranking for raises, etc. When that went nowhere, she reported me to the FBI. Not even kidding. Some people are nuts, and some nuts file lots of reports.
jaclaz 10y ago
I cannot but read this: > Ellard declared, arguing that the leaker, now a fugitive in Russia, would have received the same protections as other NSA employees, as "the same protection as", i.e. none.

212 points by rosser 10y ago

> Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do. I think this says it all. Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
zeveb 10y ago
> Even if you don't retaliate, if the way you deal with a whistleblower who brings illegal activity to your attention is to explain to them why it's okay rather than do something about it, then you shouldn't really be surprised if whistleblowers lose trust in the organization's ability to police itself. You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. He could actually be mistaken; in that case explaining to him why it's okay to do something is precisely the correct action to take.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Generally speaking, a whistle-blower will be probably want to report something that he or she believes to be somewhere between blatantly unethical and morally questionable, and illegality will only come into play under the assumption that an illegal act is automatically dubious, at minimum. It could be something like "Mr. X is submitting exactly the same report with only the dates changed on subsequent days to meet his analysis quotas". That's legal, but unethical. Now, the whistle-keeper should be expected to at least investigate the facts as reported by the whistle-blower, rather than say, "You didn't really see what you saw. Maybe Mr. X actually did redo the analysis work on subsequent days and just coincidentally got the same results? Nothing to see here; case closed." The whistle-keeper has a duty to anonymize the source by independently investigating, then to determine whether the complaint is actionable, escalate appropriately, and then tell the original source(s) what was done and why. If you aren't doing that, you're at best a black hole for complaints, and at worst a honeypot for snaring employees that won't "go along to get along". Then potential whistle-blowers will recognize your disingenuous uselessness, and route around it by going further up the chain of command or leaking to an outsider. In order for whistle-blower protection to work, the ethics hotline has to do its freaking job and be trustworthy.
- gizmo686 10y ago
  >You're begging the question by assuming that the activity a whistleblower reports is illegal. In this particular case, we know that (some of) the activity reported was illegal. The fact that, even with this being known publicly, the "watchdog"'s response is still to explain why the activity is okay is a problem.
- parenthephobia 10y ago
  It is generally accepted that at least some of the activities Snowden was concerned about were in fact illegal. Now, Snowden isn't a judge, nor would he have had complete knowledge of what was going on. He couldn't have known for sure that the activities were illegal. But, unless you take the view that Snowden maliciously revealed activities he actually believed were legal, he at least had reasonable suspicions that they weren't. The job of somebody to whom whistleblowers report is to take that seriously. Perhaps, in many cases, the reasonable suspicions are unfounded. Perhaps there is a byzantine legal framework in place that makes apparently illegal activity technical legal. Perhaps Snowden's concerns had already been raised by others through the proper channels, investigated, and found to be unfounded. Regardless of that, we know that in this case some of the things Snowden reported on were illegal, and that going by the "proper channels" did not result in illegal activity being detected and stopped. Unless we imagine that Snowden is lying about having tried to report it to the agency first, and that nobody else amongst the hundreds of thousands - speculatively: the true number is classified - of NSA employees and contractors had both the knowledge of illegal activity and enough concern about it to report it through the proper channels. Whatever the case. The part of the NSA that is tasked with detecting and preventing illegal operations hasn't done that for what appear to be some pretty big operations. Either it didn't care that the operations were illegal, it didn't know they were illegal, or it didn't even know they were happening. None of those possibilities reflect well on the watchdog.

andrewclunn 10y ago

Seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of situation. One wonders if the guy's job description basically contained, "Stop leaks of NSA overreach, while advocating for those who have concerns about NSA overreach."

dTal 10y ago
Kind of like how the NSA's job description is "Guard the security of communications technologies and encryption standards. Also, hack everyone."
snovv_crash 10y ago
Sounds to me like he was a honeypot.
croon 10y ago
Sure, keep your job or uphold the fundementals of democracy. Although he lost his job explicitly for optimizing towards the former. If he instead did the latter he would be less likely to be fired, because that would have looked as bad as the leaks he tried to contain. If I'm not tripping anywhere, the only sound choice is the latter, both morally and professionally.

suprgeek 10y ago

So the Watchdog RETALIATED against some one who brought wrongdoing to light... Isn't this jokers Job Description pretty much the protection of exactly these whistle blowers ? The cognitive dissonance here is almost too much to bear

benevol 10y ago
> The cognitive dissonance here is almost too much to bear The cognitive dissonance is now everywhere. It permeates our systems. The Greatest Country on Earth (tm) looking to crucify the defender of democracy and freedom and effectively forcing him into finding protection in a communist regime. Approximately 50% of American citizens are made to believe Snowden is a traitor. The list goes on. And the situation has literally reached biblical proportions. Signs are now on the wall.
- hawkice 10y ago
  > And the situation has literally reached biblical proportions. Not sure what part of the bible is literally in proportion here.
  - benevol 10y ago
    J on the cross.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      Did you just say Snowden is equivalent to Jesus?
      - benevol 10y ago
        We're crucifying democracy. Is it really that hard to see?
        lichform 10y ago

advisedwang 10y ago

You would think it is the NSAs best interest to treat people who report issues within the organisation well, so that they don't go externally.

sitkack 10y ago
Not just treat the people well, but address the problems exposed. The NSA shouldn't really address problems with the NSA, whistleblowers should report to Congress.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago

I sometimes forget that the wheels of government often turn slowly, but they do turn. It's unfortunate that so much damage was caused by the time this took (and the lack of trust from the lower ranks of the leadership), but it sounds like (at least to some degree) things are improving. I know Im often one of the harshest critics of the NSA (and related agencies), but it's important to acknowledge when things are well handled. I just wish they would help us play a little defense. The nation needs leadership in transitioning the infrastructure of democracy -- media, information, social ties, and speech -- to resilient digital platforms. The military has long produced leaders on which the country could rely, and we're sorely in need of their service to counter the influence of those who seek to weaken democracy using technology.

appleflaxen 10y ago
When the military is willing to whip the public into a media-fear-frenzy about terrorism, rather than speaking about the real numerical size of the risk and why we should focus on any things, they deserve no credit.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  I just don't remotely agree. Firstly, the military isn't one homogenous organization, and can be sharply internally divided in a way they don't often expose to the public. And to a large extent, their message is set by partisan civilian leaders. Secondly, failures in one area doesn't negate progress in another -- and that the leader of the NSA immediately fired their IG when other IGs found an issue with performance is a big deal. That's a fundamental change in policy and accountability to civilian authority. We can't be purely antagonistic to the military. We demanded they change course, and a few years later, they've clearly changed how they handle these matters. For a bureaucracy the size of the DoD, that's lightning speed.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    > That's a fundamental change in policy and accountability to civilian authority. It doesn't sound like a change in policy; it sounds like it's been the policy for quite some time (proposed on 2012, implemented in 2013).

discardorama 10y ago

On a tangential note: > Meanwhile, the ICIG’s handling of what began as a whistleblower complaint against Ellard sends an encouraging signal to those who may report wrongdoing at 17 US intelligence agencies We have 17 intelligence agencies?!??

rflrob 10y ago
Wikipedia only reports 16 [0], but you're looking at each of the armed forces separately having their own, as well as the DIA, plus departments like State and Energy, the FBI, and the CIA. Each has their own particular remit, but among other things, this is why we created a Director of National Intelligence after 9/11 to (hopefully) better coordinate among them. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_C...
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  The 17 count probably includes ODNI itself sitting atop the other 16.

kazagistar 10y ago

> Ellard declared, arguing that the leaker, now a fugitive in Russia, would have received the same protections as other NSA employees, who file some one thousand reports annually to the agency’s hotline. Am I misunderstanding this line? It sounds like the NSA is constantly doing some stuff that many of its own employees find horribly abusive, and then sweeping the reports under the rug as "resolved". How the hell was this information meant to engender confidence?

zeveb 10y ago
That a thousand reports are filed doesn't mean that a thousand issues are found, and even where actual issues are found that doesn't mean that they are all 'horribly abusive.' The mere fact that someone reports behaviour doesn't mean that a) the behaviour is criminal or b) the behaviour exists. No doubt people file false reports, and true reports of legal actions, all the time. Individuals can be incorrect: that's why there are processes in place to take a clear look at allegations and determine their veracity.
- kabdib 10y ago
  How many organizations do you know that have a thousand whistleblower issues a year? It's a pretty interesting number, and worthwhile comparing to organizations of similar size.
  - sverige 10y ago
    I'm no fan of the NSA, but the number of reports means nothing if a large percentage of them don't actually involve them doing anything "wrong." A friend is a regional HR director at a large corporation I used to work for (120k employees). There was an ethics hotline to report bad behavior, and he saw most of the complaints that came through for his region. Most were groundless. In fact, one was a report on me because I wouldn't exclude a poor customer survey score for one of my indirect reports. That score affected her ranking for raises, etc. When that went nowhere, she reported me to the FBI. Not even kidding. Some people are nuts, and some nuts file lots of reports.

jaclaz 10y ago

I cannot but read this: > Ellard declared, arguing that the leaker, now a fugitive in Russia, would have received the same protections as other NSA employees, as "the same protection as", i.e. none.