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If you tell a graduate engineer about the great mathematical problems there are to solve and that solving them will protect the American people, it's quite easy

by wellboy 13y ago

If you tell a graduate engineer about the great mathematical problems there are to solve and that solving them will protect the American people, it's quite easy to get a strong workforce behind you. And if they were just engineering small parts it was probably hard to see the whole picture, even more so to judge if it's right or wrong. However, this big PR outrage will probably have them come to their senses and crumble down the NSA workforce. Checks and balances.

sharkweek 13y ago
Yeah I suppose I buy into the micro/macro argument -- "Oh, I'm just working on this awesome data crawling problem that our country will use to stop bad people from entering the country" x 1000s of employees, and then you get a few dedicated folks at the top who put it all together, it gets pretty easy to see how that could result in the types of programs we're seeing
- wellboy 13y ago
  Yup
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
mildtrepidation 13y ago
However, this big PR outrage will probably have them come to their senses and crumble down the NSA workforce. Checks and balances. This seems extremely optimistic to me. If you're assuming these people joined up because of good marketing by the government, how can you possibly argue that a "big PR outrage" will be an easy and immediate knock on the head resulting in "oh hey, this is terrible?" I don't doubt that some of the people in these positions were lured in with the promise of helping America or Americans. But at this point they live in the machine. They are its cogs and wheels. That's a very different situation from those of us on the outside looking in, thinking how black and white it all is. The government and parts of the media are still managing to convince many people -- people who don't work for the government at all -- that this is actually not a bad thing. The idea that they're not concentrating time and resources to keeping the faithful in the fold is unfathomable to me. Some might see this and bail. But I think many more are somewhere along the spectrum from convinced to brainwashed.
Zigurd 13y ago
Not before we lose a big chunk of the high tech industry and start to ask why. It takes a $100Billion pin to prick the bubble they live in, if not more.
fotbr 13y ago
Crumble the workforce? HAH Here's the bitch of the situation, and the part that most who think like you do not understand -- the people that you're hoping will "come to their senses", if they take the oaths they signed seriously (and they signed oaths, the breaking of which are punishible by imprisonment) -- are not allowed to possess (ie, read, since that would involve having a copy of the document on the device being used to read it, even if only temporarily) the documents driving "this big PR outrage", because even though those documents are out in public, they are not automatically declassified.
vkou 13y ago
Considering that neither the STASI, nor the KGB had any difficulties in recruitment, hoping for bad PR about their employer to change the mind of the choir is... Naive at best.
- pg 13y ago
  I'm sure both had plenty of difficulties. There must have been lots of really good people who'd never have considered working for either of them.
  - vkou 13y ago
    All sorts of bad employers manage to hire capable talent in this industry. I don't think the NSA is any exception. And if they treat their people well, that already puts them in the upper 50% of desirable workplaces.

by wellboy 13y ago

sharkweek 13y ago

Yeah I suppose I buy into the micro/macro argument -- "Oh, I'm just working on this awesome data crawling problem that our country will use to stop bad people from entering the country" x 1000s of employees, and then you get a few dedicated folks at the top who put it all together, it gets pretty easy to see how that could result in the types of programs we're seeing

wellboy 13y ago
Yup
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

mildtrepidation 13y ago

However, this big PR outrage will probably have them come to their senses and crumble down the NSA workforce. Checks and balances. This seems extremely optimistic to me. If you're assuming these people joined up because of good marketing by the government, how can you possibly argue that a "big PR outrage" will be an easy and immediate knock on the head resulting in "oh hey, this is terrible?" I don't doubt that some of the people in these positions were lured in with the promise of helping America or Americans. But at this point they live in the machine. They are its cogs and wheels. That's a very different situation from those of us on the outside looking in, thinking how black and white it all is. The government and parts of the media are still managing to convince many people -- people who don't work for the government at all -- that this is actually not a bad thing. The idea that they're not concentrating time and resources to keeping the faithful in the fold is unfathomable to me. Some might see this and bail. But I think many more are somewhere along the spectrum from convinced to brainwashed.

Zigurd 13y ago

Not before we lose a big chunk of the high tech industry and start to ask why. It takes a $100Billion pin to prick the bubble they live in, if not more.

fotbr 13y ago

Crumble the workforce? HAH Here's the bitch of the situation, and the part that most who think like you do not understand -- the people that you're hoping will "come to their senses", if they take the oaths they signed seriously (and they signed oaths, the breaking of which are punishible by imprisonment) -- are not allowed to possess (ie, read, since that would involve having a copy of the document on the device being used to read it, even if only temporarily) the documents driving "this big PR outrage", because even though those documents are out in public, they are not automatically declassified.

vkou 13y ago

Considering that neither the STASI, nor the KGB had any difficulties in recruitment, hoping for bad PR about their employer to change the mind of the choir is... Naive at best.

pg 13y ago
I'm sure both had plenty of difficulties. There must have been lots of really good people who'd never have considered working for either of them.
- vkou 13y ago
  All sorts of bad employers manage to hire capable talent in this industry. I don't think the NSA is any exception. And if they treat their people well, that already puts them in the upper 50% of desirable workplaces.