7 ms·

Severing Ties with the NSA

326 points by dil8 13y ago

genwin 13y ago
Excellent. Ostracizing complicit people is the key to reducing bad behavior. Imagine if you did some real bad but legal thing and then no one would talk to you, not even your family, or even serve you in a restaurant. Others would think twice. I don't think it's as horrible a consequence as prison, where these people belong. (NSA folk flouted their oath to support the Constitution and defend it against domestic enemies.) If you changed your ways you could be forgiven.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Amadou 13y ago
  If you changed your ways you could be forgiven. One slight modification taking a page from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committees: If you acknowledge the error of your ways and also change them then you should be forgiven. How do we know it isn't a glib confession? That's going to have to be a judgment call.
  - weaksauce 13y ago
    one could always wiretap/spy on them to see if they have any type of recidivism. /(only partially sarcastic but then who watches the watchers?)
- pekk 13y ago
  Unfortunately, "ostracizing complicit people" is often interpreted as code for "using force against people who disagree with me" (for example, someone who expresses an unpopular opinion concerning Bradley Manning). Blackballing people based on ideology is a McCarthyite idea, not a progressive one
  - appleflaxen 13y ago
    I'm pretty sure the OP is advocating blackballing based on their actions. As he says, their behavior is illegal, and blackballing is better than they deserve. Nobody is advocating anything except due process and free speech. Who can possibly object to that?
    - whyenot 13y ago
      > As he says, their behavior is illegal, and blackballing is better than they deserve. Nobody is advocating anything except due process and free speech. It's not clear yet that what they did is illegal. No court has ruled that. It's sickening to me that you can on one had assume that a group of people should be punished for something they may not even be guilty of while at the same time claiming to support due process.
      - YokoZar 13y ago
        It is not "sickening" that I would refuse to have dinner with OJ Simpson even though the courts found him not guilty of murder, because every reasonable person believes he is a murderer. It does not take long extended trials determining precise compliance with law before we, as people, can determine whether or not we should chastize someone. Sometimes it merely takes their public behavior and a smidgeon of thought.
      - RickHull 13y ago
        > It's not clear yet that what they did is illegal. This may or may not be the fact, due only to surreptitious, insidious manipulations of legislation. But how about we try immoral, unconscionable, and unconstitutional? When Congress asked James Clapper really tough questions, to which he gave untruthful answers, is that because Congress thought the NSA was acting in accordance with the law? Did Clapper give untruthful answers because he thought the NSA was acting in accordance with the law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper#False_testimony_to_Congress_on_NSA_surveillance_programs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper#False_testimony_t...
      - grey-area 13y ago
- whyenot 13y ago
  > Ostracizing complicit people is the key to reducing bad behavior Exactly. If you are a member of the communist party you have no business working in the entertainment industry.
  - genwin 13y ago
    Ostracization is warranted only when you are behaving very badly. Being a member of the communist party doesn't by itself imply bad behavior.
theboss 13y ago
This is stupid. You severe ties with the NSA but what about the FBI, CIA, DEA, DISA, DIA, the list goes on. What about contractors who do business for the NSA? The big primes. Lockheed, Grumman, SAIC, CGIFederal, BAE, Booz, etc.etc. It's pointless to say you won't do business with one when they are all interconnected. Coming from someone raised in Beltway culture. edit: It is also funny when people say things to the effect of "Beyond what conspiracy theorist could have ever imagined". I'm honestly surprised when people say they didn't know or expect this was happening.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > You solve one problem in the world, but what about all the others? Its actually not "others", its the same issue; if you haven't severed ties from the rest of the US intelligence community (and, given the way NSA is wedged into the military as well, that too), you haven't meaningfully severed ties with the NSA, you've just made an empty PR gesture and made those ties very slightly less direct.
- undoware 13y ago
  > This is stupid... [there are too many, they are all interconnected]. Really? Ever tried to get in shape? There's always that first step. Also -- quoting someone here who, whatever his faults, did get rid of a lot of american colonial bullshit -- it does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop. It is very clear that you are a beltway product, and I eagerly anticipate never doing business with you, never inviting you to a convention, and never taking your money. Because the guy behind you is getting impatient. NEXT!
  - theboss 13y ago
    I didn't try to get in shape actually, I succeeded. On topic though I don't even know what you're talking about. There are plenty of other mathematicians lined up to work for the government from thousands of schools around the country. There are plenty of PhDs in DC/MD/Va who have no problem taking the money at a R&D Firm or at the University they teach at. As long as the NSA shells out money then smart people will take it.
netman21 13y ago
And this: http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/it-is-time-for-the-trusted-computer-group-to-repudiate-the-nsa http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/i...
mmanfrin 13y ago
Doesn't the NSA employ something in the area of 25% of all Math PHDs in the US? This will be a tough severance.
- tantalor 13y ago
  http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/2010Survey-NewDoctorates-Supp-TableE1.pdf http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/2010Survey-... Looks like under 5% of new PhD grads take a government job.
  - monsterix 13y ago
    > ... making the NSA and its ilk socially unacceptable — just as, in the days of my youth, working for the KGB was socially unacceptable for many in the Soviet Union. This could harm that interested 5% as well. At least I hope so.
  - ezzaf 13y ago
    But how many of those taking non government jobs end up working on intelligence projects with the private consulting firms this work is increasingly being outsourced to?
pmorici 13y ago
"But if any healing is possible, it would probably start with making the NSA and its ilk socially unacceptable" I'm surprised people are suggesting this as a solution. I don't see how creating an us vs them mentality is helpful here given that when you get down to it they are basically just folks trying to make a living and feed their family like any one else. A better and more positive solution could be for a bunch of private sector companies who opposed what is going on here to get together and aggressively poach their employees. It's hard to build an evil empire when all your best engineers have been hired away.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  > "when you get down to it they are basically just folks trying to make a living and feed their family like any one else." aka: "The Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" Anyway, the theory of operation here is that if you create social cost for the decision to work for the NSA, then the NSA will have a more difficult time recruiting new mathematicians. Even if you only get 5% of all graduates to swear to themselves that they won't take a job with the NSA, that is 5% of the top talent that the NSA will no longer be able to recruit. Your "better and more positive" solution can and should be tried at the same time. We should do both. Ostracize the participants, and welcome them back into the fold with open arms and juicy salaries if they 'see the error of their ways'.
  - pmorici 13y ago
    I don't think the Yuppie Nuremberg Defense applies here. They would have to know what they are doing was clearly wrong for starters what makes you think the average rank and file employee would even have that kind of a big picture view?
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      They are free to mount the defense that what they are doing is not wrong, but if they are instead resorting to "Hey man, I've got a mortgage to pay" then I am going to call "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense". If their personal finances is what they are offering in defense of themselves, then it absolutely applies. Regardless, this proposal really does not count on any sort of innate notion among the NSA rank and file that what they are doing is wrong. What it counts on is NSA rank and file valuing their non-NSA social, academic, and professional contacts. "If you take that job, you are dead to me.", coming from colleagues and friends, does not really have anything to do with what the prospective NSA employees "big picture" on the ethics of that line work. If we want to convince prospective NSA employees that taking an NSA job is ethically wrong, then that is something that we can do in addition to this. Convince them they are wrong, and let them know that social ties will be severed if they go through with it.
xacaxulu 13y ago
This is the intellectually honest thing to do. Bravo to the people who stand up to illegal government operations.
e3pi 13y ago
The AMS needs a `Society of Concerned Mathematicians'. Collectively, it could voice and lobby with authority in DC. Neal Koblitz, of Elliptic Curve Cryptography, has been doing humanitarian crypto outreach for political dissent in Central America for decades.

326 points by dil8 13y ago

Excellent. Ostracizing complicit people is the key to reducing bad behavior. Imagine if you did some real bad but legal thing and then no one would talk to you, not even your family, or even serve you in a restaurant. Others would think twice. I don't think it's as horrible a consequence as prison, where these people belong. (NSA folk flouted their oath to support the Constitution and defend it against domestic enemies.) If you changed your ways you could be forgiven.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Amadou 13y ago
If you changed your ways you could be forgiven. One slight modification taking a page from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committees: If you acknowledge the error of your ways and also change them then you should be forgiven. How do we know it isn't a glib confession? That's going to have to be a judgment call.
- weaksauce 13y ago
  one could always wiretap/spy on them to see if they have any type of recidivism. /(only partially sarcastic but then who watches the watchers?)
pekk 13y ago
Unfortunately, "ostracizing complicit people" is often interpreted as code for "using force against people who disagree with me" (for example, someone who expresses an unpopular opinion concerning Bradley Manning). Blackballing people based on ideology is a McCarthyite idea, not a progressive one
- appleflaxen 13y ago
  I'm pretty sure the OP is advocating blackballing based on their actions. As he says, their behavior is illegal, and blackballing is better than they deserve. Nobody is advocating anything except due process and free speech. Who can possibly object to that?
  - whyenot 13y ago
    > As he says, their behavior is illegal, and blackballing is better than they deserve. Nobody is advocating anything except due process and free speech. It's not clear yet that what they did is illegal. No court has ruled that. It's sickening to me that you can on one had assume that a group of people should be punished for something they may not even be guilty of while at the same time claiming to support due process.
    - YokoZar 13y ago
      It is not "sickening" that I would refuse to have dinner with OJ Simpson even though the courts found him not guilty of murder, because every reasonable person believes he is a murderer. It does not take long extended trials determining precise compliance with law before we, as people, can determine whether or not we should chastize someone. Sometimes it merely takes their public behavior and a smidgeon of thought.
    - RickHull 13y ago
      > It's not clear yet that what they did is illegal. This may or may not be the fact, due only to surreptitious, insidious manipulations of legislation. But how about we try immoral, unconscionable, and unconstitutional? When Congress asked James Clapper really tough questions, to which he gave untruthful answers, is that because Congress thought the NSA was acting in accordance with the law? Did Clapper give untruthful answers because he thought the NSA was acting in accordance with the law? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper#False_testimony_to_Congress_on_NSA_surveillance_programs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper#False_testimony_t...
    - grey-area 13y ago
whyenot 13y ago
> Ostracizing complicit people is the key to reducing bad behavior Exactly. If you are a member of the communist party you have no business working in the entertainment industry.
- genwin 13y ago
  Ostracization is warranted only when you are behaving very badly. Being a member of the communist party doesn't by itself imply bad behavior.

theboss 13y ago

This is stupid. You severe ties with the NSA but what about the FBI, CIA, DEA, DISA, DIA, the list goes on. What about contractors who do business for the NSA? The big primes. Lockheed, Grumman, SAIC, CGIFederal, BAE, Booz, etc.etc. It's pointless to say you won't do business with one when they are all interconnected. Coming from someone raised in Beltway culture. edit: It is also funny when people say things to the effect of "Beyond what conspiracy theorist could have ever imagined". I'm honestly surprised when people say they didn't know or expect this was happening.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > You solve one problem in the world, but what about all the others? Its actually not "others", its the same issue; if you haven't severed ties from the rest of the US intelligence community (and, given the way NSA is wedged into the military as well, that too), you haven't meaningfully severed ties with the NSA, you've just made an empty PR gesture and made those ties very slightly less direct.
undoware 13y ago
> This is stupid... [there are too many, they are all interconnected]. Really? Ever tried to get in shape? There's always that first step. Also -- quoting someone here who, whatever his faults, did get rid of a lot of american colonial bullshit -- it does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop. It is very clear that you are a beltway product, and I eagerly anticipate never doing business with you, never inviting you to a convention, and never taking your money. Because the guy behind you is getting impatient. NEXT!
- theboss 13y ago
  I didn't try to get in shape actually, I succeeded. On topic though I don't even know what you're talking about. There are plenty of other mathematicians lined up to work for the government from thousands of schools around the country. There are plenty of PhDs in DC/MD/Va who have no problem taking the money at a R&D Firm or at the University they teach at. As long as the NSA shells out money then smart people will take it.

netman21 13y ago

And this: http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/it-is-time-for-the-trusted-computer-group-to-repudiate-the-nsa http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/i...

mmanfrin 13y ago

Doesn't the NSA employ something in the area of 25% of all Math PHDs in the US? This will be a tough severance.

tantalor 13y ago
http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/2010Survey-NewDoctorates-Supp-TableE1.pdf http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/2010Survey-... Looks like under 5% of new PhD grads take a government job.
- monsterix 13y ago
  > ... making the NSA and its ilk socially unacceptable — just as, in the days of my youth, working for the KGB was socially unacceptable for many in the Soviet Union. This could harm that interested 5% as well. At least I hope so.
- ezzaf 13y ago
  But how many of those taking non government jobs end up working on intelligence projects with the private consulting firms this work is increasingly being outsourced to?

pmorici 13y ago

"But if any healing is possible, it would probably start with making the NSA and its ilk socially unacceptable" I'm surprised people are suggesting this as a solution. I don't see how creating an us vs them mentality is helpful here given that when you get down to it they are basically just folks trying to make a living and feed their family like any one else. A better and more positive solution could be for a bunch of private sector companies who opposed what is going on here to get together and aggressively poach their employees. It's hard to build an evil empire when all your best engineers have been hired away.

jlgreco 13y ago
> "when you get down to it they are basically just folks trying to make a living and feed their family like any one else." aka: "The Yuppie Nuremberg Defense" Anyway, the theory of operation here is that if you create social cost for the decision to work for the NSA, then the NSA will have a more difficult time recruiting new mathematicians. Even if you only get 5% of all graduates to swear to themselves that they won't take a job with the NSA, that is 5% of the top talent that the NSA will no longer be able to recruit. Your "better and more positive" solution can and should be tried at the same time. We should do both. Ostracize the participants, and welcome them back into the fold with open arms and juicy salaries if they 'see the error of their ways'.
- pmorici 13y ago
  I don't think the Yuppie Nuremberg Defense applies here. They would have to know what they are doing was clearly wrong for starters what makes you think the average rank and file employee would even have that kind of a big picture view?
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    They are free to mount the defense that what they are doing is not wrong, but if they are instead resorting to "Hey man, I've got a mortgage to pay" then I am going to call "Yuppie Nuremberg Defense". If their personal finances is what they are offering in defense of themselves, then it absolutely applies. Regardless, this proposal really does not count on any sort of innate notion among the NSA rank and file that what they are doing is wrong. What it counts on is NSA rank and file valuing their non-NSA social, academic, and professional contacts. "If you take that job, you are dead to me.", coming from colleagues and friends, does not really have anything to do with what the prospective NSA employees "big picture" on the ethics of that line work. If we want to convince prospective NSA employees that taking an NSA job is ethically wrong, then that is something that we can do in addition to this. Convince them they are wrong, and let them know that social ties will be severed if they go through with it.

xacaxulu 13y ago

This is the intellectually honest thing to do. Bravo to the people who stand up to illegal government operations.

e3pi 13y ago

The AMS needs a `Society of Concerned Mathematicians'. Collectively, it could voice and lobby with authority in DC. Neal Koblitz, of Elliptic Curve Cryptography, has been doing humanitarian crypto outreach for political dissent in Central America for decades.