Here's something that pops in my head every time Binney comes up, but I've never quite articulated it... Let's just assume for the moment that outcome X is goo

Here's something that pops in my head every time Binney comes up, but I've never quite articulated it... Let's just assume for the moment that outcome X is good while outcome Y is bad. (I know most people wouldn't agree with that as applied to the NSA's history of wide-net surveillance, but just stick with me...) You design a system that technically delivers outcome X. It could technically deliver outcome Y, but you didn't implement it to deliver that outcome. However, there is nothing at all preventing outcome Y from being achieved with your system other than stated policy. Additionally, your system as designed brings the possibility of outcome Y much closer to fruition at a fraction of the cost of the quotes from contractors from the time. It comes to be known that your system has been trivially revised to achieve outcome Y, and you become a dissident. Now you take on the responsibility of educating people about what can be achieved with your system, and systems like it. I get that part. But here's the question: what was Binney's responsibility in designing the system in the first place? In interviews I've watched he seems to justify his contribution to the program by referring to the policy at the time-- to only use wide-net surveillance data gleaned from the internet on non-U.S. citizen targets overseas, and nobody ever imagined it would be turned around to spy on the domestic population. But has anyone ever asked him if he regrets building a system in the first place that lowered the cost on a type of surveillance the risks of which are not well-understood? In that sense I don't see anything different in what he did than what the Stuxnet authors did. And I'm quite sure if a whistleblower from that team went public someone would ask why they thought it was responsible to build it in the first place.