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 g

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.