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The NSA's Philosopher
An anonymous reader writes: In 2012, the NSA decided it needed an in-house ethicist to write about the philosophy of surveillance. They searched within the organization for a candidate, finally giving the job to an analyst who had abandoned a writing career that hadn't worked out. The Intercept got its hands on some of his work: "The columns answer a sociological curiosity: How does working at an intelligence agency turn a privacy hawk into a prophet of eavesdropping?" At one point, the analyst wrote, "We probably all have something we know a lot about that is being handled at a higher level in a manner we're not entirely happy about. This can cause great cognitive dissonance for us, because we may feel our work is being used to help the government follow a policy we feel is bad." The article analyzes this man in detail, including his life history and his personal blog — it's a strange coupling of invasiveness and anonymization, for they take steps to avoid revealing his identity. The article's author correctly notes (while the NSA does not) that surveilling somebody doesn't mean you really know them.
I love this story.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
It's called rationalizing, and anyone can do it. First, do whatever you want. Next, come up with a justification. As long as you act first and justify second, you're doing it right! Under no circumstances should you reverse the order of operations, you you may end up actually behaving ethically.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Years of reports for the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board show NSA analysts were caught mishandling surveillance data and spying on people through their job. Analysts with the National Security Agency have been abusing surveillance data to spy on significant others and spouses for more than a decade, heavily redacted government documents show.
And now they want to convince us they are "ethical"? Never mind the legality of it.
If you assume the people watching are in fact the good guys and bear you no ill will and will never misuse their knowledge or incompetently leak it to others.
If, on the other hand, they happen to be human beings, who will inevitably abuse their power, then maybe not so much.
surveilling somebody doesn't mean you really know them.
and fucking somebody doesn't mean you love them.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There is a rule in politics that I always agreed with. You don't bring the other guys sexuality into it, unless it makes him an actual hypocrite by his policy. So you don't mention a man is gay, even if he is, unless he comes out and gives a speech about how gays belong in prison. Makes sense right?
well.... This man argues everyone should be transparent.... I feel the author made a mistake in not doxing him completely and releasing his full name and phone number.
I hate this man, but maybe its just because I don't know EVERYTHING about him. Clearly he needs to be helped by releasing that information so I can come to understand him as a real human and not a threat to my privacy.
This is one of the few cases where doxing is not only justified, but, the moral imperative!
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
As someone wise once told me.. "Wish in one hand and shit in the other. One hand will be full and the other empty, tell me which is which." What you are attempting to claim is that someone today can unlearn thousands of years of study on human nature. I realize you were attempting to be nice, but nice and honesty don't always go hand in hand.
To the psychopath that decided this person was Socrates I will ask that they actually go study Socrates. This person was not Socrates or Plato by any stretch of the imagination. In both cases the Philosopher would have been smart enough to know that self interests and preservation prevents a fair view of their ethics. The only way for someone to evaluate the ethics fairly would be to evaluate as an outsider.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
you both achieved a goal. so don't investigate the guy because he tagged you. he did his job. you did your job, you found an ethical dilemna worth studying. win-win. I want a cookie.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
No, I call it putting bread on the table. Picture this. There's a call for "writers", a guarantee of relative anonymity (the column will be published in an internal network of a highly secretive organization), and a chance to either get paid extra or at least rise in the eyes of your bosses (and thus make yourself a wee bit less dispensable). If I were already in his or her position, I'd apply and do my damnedest to write something at least grammatically and stylistically competent while pleasing to the target market (the head spooks). And he appears to have met the criteria. It's no different from being the speech writer of an annoying political candidate.
I suspect most of the NSA rank and file belong to this category. They love their job because it puts bread on the table.
I do believe that having more information will allow for a more accurate analysis of why people behave the way they do, that is, their motivations.
Except that Mr. Socrates admits to "being loyal to a fault" and "I try to be a good lieutenant and good civil servant of even the policies I think are misguided." So you can read all you want into his beliefs and morals. But in the end, what he does is what he was ordered to do. Ultimately, knowing him intimately is pointless if you don't know who is behind the curtain pulling the levers.
Most of the world runs this way. The guy turning the valve on the ovens at Auschwitz was "just following orders". The ultimate motivation to having extensive dossiers on your people is to gain leverage over them, should they appear hesitant to turn that valve. This is more important in a 'free society' such as ours than in a totalitarian state where the consequences of not following orders can be severe. And no matter what kind of government one lives under, eventually they all start to believe that their mission is more important than the values of its individuals. So they all need valve-turners.
Have gnu, will travel.
Indeed, more information *can* yield a clearer picture of the event, situation, etc.
However, more data also simplifies the job of cherry picking data points to prove some totally random theory.
Hope drives the former, while laziness drives the latter.
Anything you say can *and* will be used against you in a court of law (except in cases where you're exempt from the extra paperwork of courts). That takes on a more ominous tone when you can't control the massive volume of data being collected and generated about everything you ever do.
They could have hired an actual philosophy PhD, or contracted a researcher in surveillance ethics to write their columns. Instead of which they hire internally and come up with a would-be storyteller.
They're employing this idiot for the same reason a priest is dragged in to babble pointless bullshit when the state executes someone: It makes them feel better about what they're doing or, at least, gives them a good excuse.
It was interesting to see terms like "total surveillance", been "loyal" and a "higher level".
"Total surveillance" is great for budget growth and domestic expansion requests.
The German "orders are orders" aspect vs the US constitution is another interesting idea that seems to be well established over decades.
Long term the US is facing the same issues the UK faced in the 1930's -1970's
A flood of staff with skills but no vetting just to get the needed Russian or German or later computer skills worked for the UK short term.
After the 1950-60 UK vetting was found to be vital again and outsourcing was used to fill the skills gap with loyalty been the only new test.
What the US and other nations found is that "loyalty" alone does not bring a fully rounded person, a smart person with life skills for the world stage.
The UK solved the issues by adding more expensive excellence in terms of working conditions, ongoing education, better wages, real advancement options at every level, making every domestic action legal and ensuing only the very best staff where kept long term.
The understanding of total compartmentalization also helped the UK.
The US now the huge internal tasks of ensuing every loyal staff member is comfortable with their working around the US constitution domestically, ensuring another Church Committee like report is never made public again and no more whistleblowers.
Constant internal legal reassurance over illegal domestic spying, pay issues, a living wage, spending on further education of loyal staff, the new external contractors testing US gov staff for loyalty with new tests and tracking.
What can be said about US intelligence capabilities long term if the loyal only trend continues? Loyal gov staff with few advancement prospects, rising living costs surrounded by highly paid expert private sector contractors is not a great mix.
Now the US has now funded internal, domestic "total surveillance" as a bureaucratic growth opportunity for its huge numbers of loyal gov staff.
More domestic electronic "total surveillance" will be the only solution available to any issue.
Weak domestic crypto, working with big US brands for more trap doors, back doors will ensure total domestic surveillance. The East German issue of bureaucratic surveillance size to population size will become a US budget issue.
A domestic controlled opposition system would have been much more effective and cheaper but the US seems to be sold on public/private/mil total surveillance.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Do you hear what you are saying? You are saying the people who work as NSA are the same as those at Auschwitz who killed masses of people.
Maybe he mooooved on?
Let's talk about the limits for a second. Folks are upset by activities that were 1) authorized by Congress, 2) had oversight by the executive branch of the US government (White House, Department of Justice, and ODNI), and 3) were reviewed by the courts. If you don't like what is going on then stop wasting your time posting on ./ then get involved and write to your congressmen to change things.
Do you hear what you are saying? You are saying the people who work as NSA are the same as those at Auschwitz who killed masses of people.
They are essentially the same. They're part of a system which kills people it finds inconvenient, all over the world.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It would be an oxymoron to put the terms "NSA" and "ethicist" in the same sentence, much less hire one. Let's see:
Position: in-house ethicist for NSA
Requirements:
Candidates displaying a cloven left hoof and horns will be given preference.
Drones have a long way to go before they are numerically equivalent to Auschwitz, but let's face it, they're both systematic assassination programs that target people in a particular ethnic group which a wildly aggressive administration simply doesn't like. Many strikes are against people whose names aren't even known. The NSA is a key part of the drone program. You can't work there and not be supporting it.
I'll bite. The people at Auschwitz would have been killed if they refused to follow orders, and there would be consequences for close family as well. NSA employees could quit with little, if any, consequence beyond the loss of their pay cheque. What the employees at Auschwitz were involved in is far worse, imo, than anything we're aware of the NSA but that doesn't mean you can't make any comparison.
The people who threatened and silenced the opposition in Germany in order to help the Nazis gain total control are just as responsible for the atrocities that came later as the individuals who were ordered to execute the victims.
I wish we had similar data about all NSA employees, or even all federal government employees.
The information isn't associated with a name. It should therefore be OK for people to have it, right?
The activities were NOT "authorized by Congress". Bush described a "warrantless wiretapping" program (a clear violation of the FISA Act) back in the early 2000s. Then, the government granted itself ex-post-facto immunity with the FISA revisions act in 2007..
There is no "oversight" when the president and DOJ are overseeing themselves. That's like letting police write their own search warrants and claiming it's OK because the police chief and mayor are cool with it.
Reviewed by the courts my ass! The FISA court is a secret court where The People have no voice and it rubber stamps anything the government wants to do as long as they claim it's for national security.
At least twice the ACLU has gone through the regular courts and sued the government on the issue of illegal and un-Constitutional surveillance. The government has argued that the plaintiffs do not have "legal standing" because they can't prove they were affected (of course the government won't tell you who was affected because "national security"). AFAIK, neither federal courts nor the SCOTUS have ever directly addressed the Constitutionality of the bulk surveillance programs
" write to your congressmen to change things."
LOL. I've written, e-mailed, called and sent snail mail for years and nothing ever changes. The only issues where the little people have so far been victorious is in stopping gun control and with a few tactical victories like defeating CISPA.
The government has unlimited time and money however, so they can wear us down with a relentless assault on civil liberties.
No, he's saying that "I was only following orders" is in no way a justification for behavior that is morally wrong or even illegal. The parallel is clear.
This NSA guy is actually admitting that he is willing to do his job as a cog in the machine even if he thinks the activities are wrong.
The successful candidate will be highly skilled in ethical gymnastics.
Are you looking to sell out your country for the ends of the current malignant government?
Are you unable or unwilling to follow even the basic principals of the constitution? (Preference given to those that haven't even read it.)
Does calling you a patriot or vague warnings about terrorism motivate you to do even the shittiest most underhanded things to innocent people?
Are you highly talented in moral ambiguity and a motivated hypocrite? We have the job for you.
...where one submits to one's captors and even begins to sympathize with them. This guy has it. Mind you, surrender and submission is one of several strategies for dealing with threats. In "Socrates'" case the threat began with the polygraph test and his chosen strategy was complete submission to an adversary he probably perceives as superior. Snowden adopted a different strategy, though he may have made the same assessment of the adversary.
So you believe the administration is capricious and just picks random people in drone strikes?
The recent issue has been the FISA Section 215 program. Not the "warrantless wiretapping" program going back to the early 2000s. The FISA court is not a rubber stamp.
There are people who value their right to privacy as much as their own lives. So, yes. To them, the NSA is just as bad.
I don't recall our founding fathers prioritizing the Bill of Rights.
Have gnu, will travel.
I have a friend that made a decision that there are certain jobs he will never take. Those jobs included those which go against his moral beliefs. People who do not believe it is moral to spy on people in other countries should not take a job at the NSA. If the guy came to learn things that he was not comfortable with then he should have stopped being a cog in the machine and resigned.
The constitution is a beautiful thing. It provides protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. It also provides the government a mechanism to obtain information using warrants approved by courts. It seems the recent debateis over what is unreasonable and when warrants are required.
Yeah. Funny thing about those terrorists. It is 'inconvenient' that they enjoy killing innocent people all over the world due to their warped word views. It is 'inconvenient' they are killing innocent children and taking young under 10 years old as wives.
If we gather data, and nobody knows we did it, how can it be illegal!
Job done.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Seems he's Jacob Weber, photo on a story of his here: http://baltimorereview.org/ind... - which links to his blog at http://http//workshopheretic.b...
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"Double-tap" strikes: They kill one person, then they have the drone loiter and wait for rescuers to come along and bomb those, on the assumption those must be bad guys too. They have no idea who those people are.
They killed a mid-level Pakistani Taliban guy, in the hope bigger Taliban guys would go to the funeral. They then bombed the funeral and killed dozens of people - no idea who those people were, they just /hoped/ they'd kill some more Taliban.
A clear and utter disregard for the lives of ordinary Pakistanis, Afghans and Iraqis that is only possible if you regard them as less than human.
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I do not believe the military or government sees Pakistanis, Afghans, and Iraqis as less than human. Unfortunately many in the Islamic culture support honor killings, repressive treatment of girls and women, raping of young girls, and blind hatred of people of other religions.
I don't see what your comment has to do with the policy of killing unknown people, with no evidence against them.
Unless of course you're saying that because some people there are bad guys, or because some aspects of culture are disagreeable, that therefore it is OK to kill any one of them - including those girls and women you profess to be concerned about. In which case, you're as uncaring, as hating, as inhuman as any of the worst of them.
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Oh, and your comment demonstrates the dehumanising attitude I wrote about in mine.
You need to take a long hard look at yourself, and try find your own humanity back.
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I agree it is unfortunate that innocent people are getting hurt by drone strikes. Unfortunately weak nations stood by for years to watch this extremist culture fester. Maybe the US and others should stop the drone strikes, military action, and let the host countries deal with their own problems.
I find your view extremist.
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Couple of questions. Was it an extremist position for the US to attack Islamic militants in Afghanistan after 9/11? Is it an extremist position to capture and kill Islamic militants in Afghanistan today?
I don't think the US military intervention in Afghanistan was well-directed in terms of attacking those responsible for 9/11. Nor do I think the ongoing operations are doing much to improve US security. Indeed, the wider "war" on Islamic extremism ("we must bomb Kobane into rubble, to save it") is likely highly counter-productive and bone-headed.
However, set that aside, let's assume militant Islamic extremists are justified military targets.
Are double-tap strikes justified? How can it be justified to bomb and kill rescuers of whom nothing is known other than that came to rescue people - they may be passing good Samaritans, neighbours, etc.? Answer: It can't be justified, and it is in fact against the laws of war.
How can it be justified to deliberately bomb funerals, which will draw people of lots of different types of association with the original deceased? There would be many men and boys who are there because they were family (near and distant), kinsmen, neighbours, acquaintances, random observers, etc. - *not* militant extremists.
How can it be justified to deliberately bomb militant extremists at home? Afghanis live in large family groups. Targeting them at home kills their parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins. You can only justify this if you have absolutely no regard for civilian Afghanis (and from your earlier comment, it seem you have little regard - despite your faux concern for women there).
Home compounds were targeted simply because a militant had spent a night there. However in Afghan culture (deriving from Islamic teaching) you are required to give hospitality to strangers, and it is not uncommon for this to happen. Random families have been wiped out for no reason other than that some "brave" drone operator watched a *suspected* Taliban stay at that house some night before, and so they get bombed another night.
Here's the thing, if you can justify the above, then tell me how you would be any different from a terrorist justifying attacks on civilians in a democracy? Certainly, if you can justify bombing militants' homes, then "terrorists" can equally justify shooting off-duty soldiers or bombing their homes - if it's not terrorism when done by western powers in Afghanistan, neither can it be if they do it over here.
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Oh, for the avoidance of all doubt: The last paragraph is highlighting the consequences of saying that it is OK to kill rescuers, or OK to kill people by association. I personally do *not* believe any of these things are ever generally justified, either by western powers in the Islamic crescent or by militants elsewhere.
Double-tap strikes targeting rescuers are very clearly heinous war-crimes.
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I did not understand your usage of the term double-tap. Thanks for explaining that. I do agree killing individuals who have nothing to do with terrorism is not justified.
Good to agree on that.
Yet, no one in the west has ever been prosecuted for double-tap strikes. Not even in the infamous "Collateral Damage" video leaked by Bradley Manning, where children are clearly visible through the window of the van of a random Good Samaritan who happened to stumble on the scene of a previous attack and stopped to help.
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