“The agency, from top to bottom, leadership to rank and file, feels that it is had no support from the White House even though it’s been carrying out public

“The agency, from top to bottom, leadership to rank and file, feels that it is had no support from the White House even though it’s been carrying out publicly approved intelligence missions,” said Joel Brenner, NSA inspector general from 2002 to 2006. Despite this being totally incorrect from the broader perspective ("publicly approved" but no one knew about it??), this actually makes me feel a little sympathetic - the political echelons (Congress, the Bush and Obama administrations) handed down the orders to do this, and now the elected politicians are all acting like it's something that "just happened" outside of their control.