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Letter to "Extended Family" Assures That NSA Will "Weather This Storm"
An anonymous reader writes "The National Security Agency sent a letter to its employees, affiliates and contractors to reassure them that the NSA is not really an abusive and unchecked spying agency engaged in illegal activity." Whatever you think of the commentary, you can read the original, attached to the linked story.
it wastes their time and money and produces data that's more suited for internal political manipulation than for sensible foreign policy.
There's no such thing as 'wasting money' when you work for the government. The more money you spend, the more money you get next year, the more people you get to hire, and the more power you have.
Actually uniformed and civilian NSA people do go out into the field as we used to deploy (sail) with them on-board every time we went out for a long cruise. So those people were most likely in the field when they were killed.
[How do I know this? Whenever their gear broke and they couldn't fix it, I was one of the few people on board with way more than enough clearance to repair it even though I didn't work for the NSA.]
"The NSA/CSS Memorial Wall lists the names of 171 cryptologists who have died in the line of duty since the Agency's inception in 1952," according to the letter.
This refers to members of the US military doing cryptographic duty who died in the line of duty. Here's the list. Most died during the Cold War or in Vietnam. In recent years, in Afghanistan or Iraq. Only one civilian, Alan M. Blue, who was on the USS Liberty when the Israelis attacked it.
Why ask them? Just look at, for example, the list of people exonerated from death row.
Modesto Junior College in California.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3954954
Life is not for the lazy.