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NSA's Best Are 'Leaving In Big Numbers,' Insiders Say (cyberscoop.com)
schwit1 quotes CyberScoop: Low morale at the National Security Agency is causing some of the agency's most talented people to leave in favor of private sector jobs, former NSA Director Keith Alexander told a room full of journalism students, professors and cybersecurity executives Tuesday. The retired general and other insiders say a combination of economic and social factors including negative press coverage -- have played a part... "I am honestly surprised that some of these people in cyber companies make up to seven figures. That's five times what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff makes. Right? And these are people that are 32 years old. Do the math. [The NSA] has great competition," he said.
The rate at which these cyber-tacticians are exiting public service has increased over the last several years and has gotten considerably worse over the last 12 months, multiple former NSA officials and D.C. area-based cybersecurity employers have told CyberScoop in recent weeks... In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions.
"What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added. "They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
The rate at which these cyber-tacticians are exiting public service has increased over the last several years and has gotten considerably worse over the last 12 months, multiple former NSA officials and D.C. area-based cybersecurity employers have told CyberScoop in recent weeks... In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions.
"What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added. "They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
While nobody wants a huge abusive spy agency tracking Americans at all times, there are going to be plenty of people on here jumping up and down hoping for the destruction of the NSA... while simultaneously running around like chickens with their heads cut off claiming that Russian Hackers are the sole reason that Trump is president.
You can't have it both ways.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Given that Trump is about to use the NSA to get back at people who have argued with him over the years it is hardly surprising that people are getting out before he gets inaugurated.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Snowden made something like 200,000 a year to be a sys admin. That is high even in Silicon Valley.
I'd say the NSA is more like Bernie Madoff's organization. Everyone makes such stupid high salaries, they take the money and stfu.
I wouldn't call it "low morale" if people are leaving because they can make more money elsewhere. Patriotism loses to greed every time, and that security clearance is worth a hell of a lot more than the privilege of being able to read some foreign official's emails.
The amount of ignorance it takes to spy on foreign and domestic politicians, defy the decree of the Supreme Court, throw your misbehaving employees in jail and demonize the one that was smart enough to leave the country AND then claim the media is to blame for "Taking everything you say and everything you do and putting it on TV" is mind boggling
This is all part of your new 'Dear Leader's' plan to make America Great again.
Oh wait...
I guess they don't want to be managed by 'tweet'.
I hope that Dear Leader Trump has his twitter account taken away before he takes office.
Protect US - From a bunch of hoodlum fundamentalists that kill fewer Americans on average than lightning does. That old adage about trading freedom for security aside, if we wouldn't give every single 'terror' crime days of 24 hour news coverage, they would fade away and blend into the overall background of murders. If the American people want surveillance, it's only because we've created this narrative of fear or "it could happen to you" when in reality you are far far far more likely to die driving into work than from a terrorist attack. Allowing the terrorists to shock and scare the population is doing exactly what the terrorists want... so why do they do it?
these aren't going to be sys admins leaving. These will be the guys that do crypto and the hard math stuff. Wallstreet will gobble them up at $500k/yr+.
Gov't jobs really don't pay all that well at the top end. They're only real advantage is they're secure and often found in cities good for raising families. It's mostly the lower end where they pay better than market rates and they do that to try and spread some money around poor communities (e.g. socialism) and keep the economy from completely collapsing. Most of that is middle management jobs at defense contractors, not the NSA.
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It's not just the NSA, morale (and pay) at other technology based agencies is at rock bottom. This will end up damaging the USA far longer than Trump is around.
âoeWhat really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong,â Alexander said Tuesday. âoeThey are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes. They are the ones that deserve our praise. Not a guy who took this race to Hong Kong and to Moscow.â
Or maybe they no longer want to work at an unaccountable agency which is breaking the law on a regular basis? Or a reorg that sounds a bit screwed up?
i hadnt seen him in decades. We used to run around in highschool.
"Hey Jake, what have you been up to all these years?"
"Oh this & that, i work for the NSA now."
"Okay go fuck yourself then!"
The link in the summary points to the submission. The submission itself has no links. No sources for the quotes, no nothing. Of course, even without an article there's already 20 comments. That takes RTFA to a new level: There actually *is* no article.
> You can't have it both ways.
That's only if you are unaware that the NSA has two mandates:
(1) Spy
(2) Protect
Most of us who complain about the NSA believe that they have over-emphasized (1) at the expense of (2).
We've all heard about how the NSA hordes zero-days to enable their ability to spy which leaves everyone vulnerable to anyone else who also has those zero-days. That became explicitly clear with the Shadow Brokers fiasco.
I am happy to support the NSA in their mandate to protect. But as long as they follow a policy of keeping the US weak because it helps them spy, then they don't deserve the support of americans.
A country where people consider their political opponents "enemies" and where the leaders use government power to hurt them is not a country that can trust an agency like the NSA. And it's not a country that prioritizes the defense against foreign threats that the NSA was originally created to provide.
How does industrial, political, and financial espionage and sabotage against European countries, protect the Americans? It's funny how the U.S. is always trying to make itself out as a defenseless and helpless victim, under savage attack from the whole world, while in fact it's the other way around.
Especially in the security field, people have always taken government jobs for a while in order to leave for a better-paying private career.
There's a whole network of ex-police, FBI, and security officials working for corporations and private security services. VP in charge of security is a well-paying job.
Back in the 1990s, I met a guy from the New York State police department who had established the state's first computer crime division. After his talk, he told me that he was planning to work for the police for a while and then look for a better-paying career in the private sector.
At the time, he was not concerned with hacking of a local teenager's bulletin board. He was going after big-dollar computer crimes. If it didn't meet a financial threshold, they wouldn't pursue it. It seemed like he was most interested in developing relationships with people who would hire him at a good salary after he left government.
It makes economic sense, but not a lot of dedication to public service.
I'm surprised that they even go there in the first place.
The kind of people who can do software security audits, tap into hardware designs and suchlike can command just about any salary they like.
The problem I have is understanding why such people would ever end up at places like the NSA/GCHQ in the first place. It's no longer a "cracking open the enigma" kind of place and hasn't been in a very long time, and now they are spying on their own, including themselves and their families, and putting deliberate holes into things, and doing all kinds of stupid shit.
I'm amazed anyone goes there at all.
I'm a maths and computer science graduate. I have a keen interest in coding theory and graph theory especially, both borne of an interest in codes, ciphers and such concepts. I'm a tinkerer and play with electronics and radios in my spare time, not to mention programming and other kinds of gadgets. I don't claim to be anywhere near the top of the class but, surely, I'm at least the type of person who they should be looking at.
The problem is that because of the above, I'm inherently buried in reasons that freedom, privacy and security need to be preserved by means other than trust in the government.
They are quite literally the last places I'd want to work and, even as a pacifist, if we were to go to war (a proper war, not some undeclared concept-war), and I was drafted in and told to do something, I'd refuse to the utmost of my being but even if forced at gunpoint every morning, I'd end up making bullet casings or delivering food rather than touch those kinds of organisation. Some activity for which I'm just another pair of hands.
Turing is my hero, Bletchley is my nativity manger, and "brains over brawn" are my commandments . But I couldn't ever do what he did, or work where he did, because of what it was and, even worse now, because of what it's become.
It's why I don't give credence to the "acres of supercomputers tapping all your calls" crap. I don't believe it's impossible, it's just expensive. And you can find an acre of supercomputers in any country if you rearrange things. I just don't believe they have the talent to make it do anything useful, and that much of it is wasted in isolated brute-force and hope rather than working out how to utilise it effectively.
Whenever I hear "the next stage" - more surveillance, laws protecting those agencies when they break the law, etc. - I find it even more ludicrous that what they have are a bunch of highly-skilled, educated, dedicated codebreakers, engineers and undetectable spies. It doesn't fit. These agencies are so good and yet Manning and Snowden can just copy embarrassing things to a USB stick and make them look like fools (not that I particularly think either of them got anything of value out of the venture, even if they believe so... they may have made the agencies look foolish and showed things weren't as they should be but literally NOTHING has changed because of them that I can see).
I don't buy it. I certainly don't buy that highly educated people who could walk out tomorrow and get a job in a computer security company (even of their own making) and sell products never seen before, ala Zimmerman, and they just sit there tapping people's emails and letting their agency's reputation go to shit in the press when they are all about secrecy.
The good ones probably left a long time ago. And no Times crossword is going to bring them back, even if we go to war, while those agency's agendas aren't compatible with the precept that they are they to "protect" their peoples.
"What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added. "They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
Let's make a deal: I'll make it clear I don't want your flavor of so-called heroism, and you can quit what you're doing and stop feeling put-upon and self-righteous.
But you're so addicted to your "hero" narrative that you'll never step away from the spy cams. Pricks. Can you at least mute your press conference drivel?
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
"In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions."
As far as I understand what is being done - i.e. black boxes in AT&T trunks, tapping every submarine cable which can be reached, long term logging of *all* recoded data (phone calls, SMS, emails, browsing, etc), massive decryption facilities, etc - the NSA *are* spying on absolutely everyone they can.
I suspect the statement may reflect NSA-speak, where collecting (our use of the word) data is only considered spying if you look at it.
It is not surprising the higher-ups in the NSA genuinely believe in what they say; it would be impossible for them to function, and to hold their positions, if they did not. I think they genuinely and actually believe it is fine to collect absolutely everything on everyone, and hold that incredible power (and take the catastrophic risk of it being hacked and going public), because they promise only to look at when it is, by the letter of the law (as bent to the maximum possible extent by wild interpretations never made public), legal to do so.
It was like this back in the USSR. The Soviets *genuinely* believed Maxism-Leninism. No, really! they actually saw the world in that way. No one in the West actually imagined they would genuinely believe, but they did. It is basically how humans cope with madness; they internalize it, and make it "valid" in their own terms, so that they can think of themselves as good - as doing the right thing(s).
How can anyone working for US Intelligence or Military think they are the heroes?
The US has toppled several democracies to support the exploitational interests of American Companies
Hell -- the US created the banana republics!
How many more wars will the US start for oil?
How many more terrorist organizations will the US Govt fund and train
How many more millions will die at the hands of our ruthless tyranny around the world?
We are the bad guys -- America just likes telling itself they are the good guys
..."What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added. "They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."...
I am sure that many, even most, in the NSA are the heroes he asserts. On the other hand there are instances such as NSA Officers Spy on Love Interests that cast a pall upon the agency.
.
Maybe it is time to stop blaming the media for reporting what is happening.
Isn't what Director Alexander saying the Nuremberg defense?
How is saying "They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes." any different than someone saying that they were "just following orders from a superior" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders)?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
There isn't even a link to the source. This abusive spy agency isn't going anywhere and people aren't jumping ship because they are still butthurt about the result of the election. Try harder slashdot.
"an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions" Because they are? Mass domestic metadata, voice calls, text messages, and emails are all there for the taking
I am honestly surprised that some of these people in cyber companies make up to seven figures. That's five times what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff makes. Right? And these are people that are 32 years old. Do the math.
That's a wonderful double entendre right there. If your old geezers could do the math, you wouldn't have to pay youngsters who can. Wonderful to see military's "now that we have Cobol, can we get rid of all those beatnik programmers" still alive after all those decades! So much Schadenfreude to be had here.
Ezekiel 23:20
I partly blame universities for having such poor programing degree programs. I have friends currently taking entry level classes and the professor says the intro classes are designed to weed people out from going further and graduating which means less programmers entering the market, which means higher salaries. Meanwhile other places in the world really push programming and have huge amounts of programming graduates. Sure it's a staffing issue in these college programs, but why can't universities accommodate more students with more staff instead of making them potentially drop out ?
"They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
We asked them to protect us, not treat everyone as a criminal by scanning every phone call, tracking our movements and creating a database of every person in this country to run queries against.
Also, they're not heroes. Not even for broad definition of heroes. They're doing a job a) they want to do and b) they're paid to do. If they're considered heroes then so are myself and my team whose job it is to keep our state Health department up and running 24/7 so they can respond to the next flu outbreak, flu which kills more people every year than all terrorist attacks on this country combined (roughly 23K die every year from the flu).
If you stop making excuses for why you're spying on people who have done nothing wrong, whose data you keep for years just because, and stop lying about you not spying on people who have done no wrong, maybe your agency wouldn't be considered in the light it is.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes." Heroes do an act of heroism, independent of money and nationalism. A hero does a selfless act. If it's done for money. It's just a career, a tough one perhaps, but a career all the same.
All well and good. The NSA possibly protects us from our enemies. But who protects us from the NSA? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
This is exactly the issue. If you've met people in these circles, you know there are a couple of basic types (although everyone has their own characteristics too, obviously). There are amazing people, there are very nice people, there are real jerks, there are psychopaths, and there are people who will just kind of go along with whatever everyone else is doing. You can't rely on individuals alone to protect us from unethical institutional mission creep. That's why we have laws, and that's why we create systems of oversight.
The only way to prevent corruption and abuse of our federal system in the long run is institutionally. No matter how good someone is, if you give them the power to operate in secret forever and without effective oversight, they will eventually be corrupted by it, but even if they are not the next person will be. We NEED good oversight with as much transparency as is possible under the circumstances, oversight that includes independent inspector generals and a good committee with privacy advocates as well as former NSA and others on it that takes a meaningful response to Constitutional and privacy issues rather than seeing them as a hindrance. So long as we don't have that, we should assume the system will be abused for illegal and unethical purposes.
The work the NSA does is incredibly important--but so is protecting democracy from what the NSA could become.
If the NSA and the rest of the government want to stop seeing their best and brightest leave, they should stop treating their best and brightest so poorly. These workers knew about the low pay when they entered government service, so higher salaries are not the main motivation to leave.
What is causing them to leave? The desire to work in a place where they are respected and where they can actually get things done. The desire to be in a work environment where you can actually get rid of incompetent people. The desire to work together as a team for a common goal, instead of competing underhandedly to grab for what little recognition their agency deigns to dribble out. The desire to have a management structure that actually understands the work and doesn't laugh, self-deprecatingly, about its ignorance of what the workers are doing.
The best and the brightest are leaving because they would rather work in a meritocracy. The private sector knows that attracting and keeping talent is vital to staying competitive. The federal government pays lip service to this but, in reality, it doesn't give a shit.
Maybe you can get good people to deal with bad conditions if you pay them market salaries, but don't expect them to stay if you both pay them dirt and treat them like dirt.
It takes a certain disconnect from reality for Mr. Alexander to believe that Americans are going to feel much pity for government employees getting only six figure salaries (with good benefits and retirement plans) when a few of them could be making seven figure salaries in the private sector; or when he thinks that "you all wanted to be spied on by us" is going to get much agreement from the public. In any case, I suspect that some of those employees are leaving not because of the money, but because of conscience and purpose: they have recognized that the NSA is a fairly useless institution and an institution with questionable ethics.
If I were working for the NSA right now, I probably wouldn't be the happiest employee either. Ever since the Snowden thing happened, plus WikiLeaks and the like, followed by the Equation Group and that guy who was caught getting ready to sell stolen material, the general public has been shown a new perspective about what intelligence agencies do behind the scenes. I highly doubt that's the full picture of what they do, but that's the problem with seeing only pieces of the puzzle.
It is definitely a different world. Back in the 80s and before, intelligence agencies were seen as basically the only thing keeping the Russians from wiping the planet clean, and there was a lot more trust in government. Anything the CIA, NSA, etc. did, even if it wasn't above board, was considered necessary to preserve the balance. Now there's internal leaks, people getting riled up into an anti-government frenzy, and a general mistrust in authority. The fact is that NSA does seem to attract a fair share of really good software guys and mathematicians. Government work doesn't pay well compared to the typical leaving-school jobs smart people get (name your management consulting firm or investment bank.) The only thing it does have is stability, and a public service mission. You really have to believe in the mission to take a huge pay cut compared to the $200K+ salaries banks are paying quants, but I'm sure there are still a group of people who do. The problem is that it's hard for a secretive intelligence agency to just open up the doors and show everyone what's actually going on beyond the narrative the public has seen.
So, public sector work is subject to market forces. In a regular old GS position pushing reports around, people trade low salaries for a safe retirement, decent health insurance, job security and the fact that their job isn't going to be offshored when the MBAs finally get around to preparing the report for the board. I'm sure the calculus is a little different working for the intelligence services. You get that stuff, but you also get to assist in vital work that no one will ever really hear about. The question is whether NSA can continue to find people who aren't so turned off by the current public face of the agency.
Honestly, with offshoring and automation kicking into high gear, I think government positions will be pretty good deals for most people and will be worthy of consideration. Given how bad income inequality is, would you rather have a safe, guaranteed job that didn't pay all that well, or a job that pays well but is subject to the whims of a corporate board that will offshore the job the second it becomes too expensive in their eyes? It's the equivalent of cashing in your chips while you're ahead versus betting it all on a single roulette spin.
Trump should have pizzza with John Podesta!
> " the former NSA Director added. 'They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes.'"
Except... that's not true.
The "nation" didn't ask the people of the NSA to do what they do. The "nation" has strict laws that protect civil liberties against exactly the kind of behavior the NSA is engaged in. The "nation" is actively asking a renegade agency to respect the Constitution.
The people making these requests are a small cabal of power hungry bureaucrats who are operating out of a mixture of unconstitutional ideology, conflicts of interest and personal ambition. Their prominent position in government does not grant them the authority to override the Constitution or to speak for the "nation".
The reality is that this cabal is well aware of what the "nation" is asking, and they are actively overriding said requests -- despite their constitutional mandate.
Pretty sure violating the constitution and being a treasonous pile of crap isn't heroic. Actually the penalty is hanging.
This idiot should be quite glad his organization is merely going through some inconsiderableness. If I had my way I'd lock the doors and burn the place to the ground with them all inside, make the world a better place. Definition of a hero 'someone who made the world a better place'.
Obama's Legacy strikes again!
Probably also all those super-expert and un-traceable Russian hackers that got to them.
Private industry is where it's at.
You can make more than the POTUS, the SCROTUSES that sit on the SCOTUS and interpret the COTUS for the POTUS.
Hell, you can make more than the ROTUSES, SCROTUSES and the POTUS put together.
And you don't have to be spied on by the POTUSES who nominates SCROTUSES to sit on the SCOTUS and re-interpret the COTUS for the POTUS.
Sure, absolutely they are the heroes, IF and only IF they perform their roles within the bounds of morality, while respecting our human-rights and privacy, and while additionally staying within the bounds of the law (although that is of lesser importance than morality, human-rights, and privacy). Are some of them truly heroes? Yep. Same way a handful of police officers are true heroes. There are exceptional, good, moral stand-outs. Unfortunately, as we have seen far too often and with far too much clarity, power is abused. Should we treat these people as heroes as a whole? Absolutely not. We should treat them as individuals precisely as we would if they had any other occupation. Blanket hero-worship, especially when so woefully misplaced, is dangerous.
These people will be doing pretty much the same work, but report to a different boss. Less accountability, and a lot more expense for the tax payer. Which, I suppose, is what Trump and his sycophants want. I don't think that they give two hoots about the taxes or deficits per se, they just want to ensure that the money is funneled to their friends in the federal contractor business and not to the truly needy.
Until the next big security-related catastrophe. And see what the following Congressional Report says about what effect the decimation (or worse) of the various security has had leading up to the event.
NSA, CIA, DHS, hell even NASA, army, and navy positions are going to be emptied as intelligence is anti-Trump, and Trump is anti-intelligence; both forms work and supply distinct explanations. There aren't enough of his family members to fill all those seats so Trump won't be able to respond.
>In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions. (...)
>"What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added. "They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
HAHA. Hahaha. Hahahahaha. Ha ha ha... Ha...
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
When is the President going tell the NSA to start playing with the full legal deck! This is the National Security Agency not the CIA which is another bed of garbage!!! National clearly indicates country or origin not the world! I'm getting sick of this!
They actually did help Linux be more secure in the early 2000's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Security_Modules#History
You may not think you're doing bad things, but even if (and it's a fair "if") you aren't yourself doing so, YOU AREN'T ALLOWED to tell us what you are doing, so we cannot tell you're not doing the illegal shit your "company" did that we do know about.
So please, if this douchebag is reporting your true feelings, either refuse to follow orders, blow the whistle on those who do, or STFU and stop whinging, because you ARE doing bad shit.
Yes, nice equation you got there: doing exactly what you've been told to do makes you a hero.
Interesting how a culture of inhibited personal judgement—once people spy greener grass on the other side—turns out not to be a selling feature. Let me ask you a question: This "does not compute" head-in-sand response of yours, how's that working for you inside the giant, black Faraday cage?
I've never been able to comprehend how many people look at history, and the first thing they wish to do is abstract out all human capacity to do the right thing just because.
You also see this with many free market fundamentalists.
David Zetland on Water
Russ Roberts:
Oh, Russ, you're such a wet blanket.
The problem here is that it's definitely not glorious once you abstract out all capacity for one guy to do the right thing (not dependable, who needs it?). Because system. Because mission. Because hero culture.
Has there ever been a system where it never transpired that, at some point, a healthy institutional outcome was achieved only because some individual did the right thing?
Nice to have, or essential to have?
Important question. Deserves an important answer. Unfortunately, Russ is too wrapped up in his ideological lazy filter to do the math.
translation from leader:
It is inconcievable that the NSA bad brand could impact our ability to attract and retain talent.
me to him:
you are a f*tard to say that. Go take HR 101. Go get some of the human basics.
Yes, you are spying on everyone regardless of actions. Yes you are acting substantially without judicial supervision. Yes you are aggressively compromising privacy and security of individuals in the name of "us" and then that power is abused. Yes - you are a political appointee from a party that hates defense and the military with so much contempt they don't bother to hide it. Why would any self-respecting genius, or a self-respecting moral human being want to put them through that when there is a better alternative.
You should have chosen "being excellent and noble" over "being powerful" but it is years too late for that.
how about it being more about the fact the NSA has been spying on everyone and everything they can?
how much of this spying contributed to Michael Hastings' assassination?
how about the DNC staffer that was assassinated after wikileaks started releasing evidence of Hillary's corruption?
i think it's more the realisation that the NSA are 'the bad guys' - in that they aren't so much protecting the US, but the Power Elite and their praetorian guard - the CIA.
and 7 figures is too much. tbey should all be killed
Since the beginning there has been a struggle with those in power trying to suppress inconvient truth. (Maybe with the exception of Thomas Jefferson's presidency.) The grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Franklin Bache was a newsman who criticized George Washington and John Adams and the government passed the 'Alien and Sedition Acts' of 1798 and had him arrested. From the wikipedia article on Bache:
The law [Alien and Sedition Acts] may have been written to suppress opponents such as Bache. The persistent theme of Republican journalism of the 1790s was that the federal government had fallen into the hands of an aristocratic party aligned with Britain, and that the Federalists (particularly Washington and Alexander Hamilton) were hostile to the interests of the general public while promoting corporate interests
Another quote from abolitionist Wendell Phillips in 1852:
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I see a parallel here with the US Patent office. They have big employee turnover: graduates with tech degrees sign up as patent examiners, use their government education benefits to get a law degree, then leave a few years later for much greener pastures as patent attorneys. Same could be happening at the NSA: Spend a few years letting Uncle Sugar teach you the basics of computer security and penetration testing, then leave for more $$$ as a computer security consultant. Infosec is a hot field now.
Good! More spots for us average people!
Table-ized A.I.
and Congress. Didn't you learn anything about our system of checks and balances in school?
Now, if we were to give all three branches of the gov't over to one group who had a strong pro-corporate, anti-worker ideology I might be worried. But surely we wouldn't do that (and don't call me Shirley).
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Looks like he's already moved on.
older people are harder to train and have a harder time learning new things. When the mines closed I saw a lot of highly skilled mechanics show up in tech support. They were, to a man, awful at it. But they were fantastic mechanics. These weren't dumb people. These weren't unskilled people. People's brains change as they get older, and it's not always for the best. We've been pretending this isn't a thing for a very long time.
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when he thinks that "you all wanted to be spied on by us" is going to get much agreement from the public.
Yeah, the scary thing is that while the majority of Americans disagree, polls consistently show a rather huge number of people DO agree with the spying. Pew research found 42% of Americans approve of government collection of personal data, and when you ask a more generic question, like whether our anti-terrorism policies have "not gone far enough" vs. "gone too far restricting civil liberties," you'll see the majority of Americans saying we haven't gone far enough.
Of course, part of this has to do with how you frame the questions, and MOST of it has to do with how ignorant the American public still is about what this spying really entails. As John Oliver famously showed during his process of interviewing Edward Snowden last year, if you ask people, "Should the government be allowed to see nude pictures of you" sent by email or phone or whatever, we'd probably get near 100% agreement against the NSA policies. But it's not generally framed in those terms.
(By the way, whatever you think of Snowden or John Oliver for that matter, you should watch this interview. It's scary how quickly the American public has completely forgotten about Snowden, completely misunderstands what he did and what the surveillence program is actually about, etc.)
It's not a circle. It's a waveform. Any distance, any additional number of degrees out from the origin, is possible.
We are certainly a long way from the constitution now. The worst flaw in it -- a day-1 flaw -- is that is was crafted without any provision for punishment for legislators who violate it. The largest injury ever done to it was the supreme court arrogating the power of amendment in Marbury vs. Madison, and that, too, was quite a while ago. That, combined with the enormously toxic "well, it doesn't mean what it says..." attitude... those three factors outright bought us the oligarchy we have today.
At this point it looks like Trump will probably win the EC vote, at which point we will have the cherry on top of our Sundae of Shite: a misogynist, xenophobic, sexist, rude, compulsive, racist, poorly spoken, selfish, scientifically illiterate, and frankly, not too bright president.
It's popcorn time, folks.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Information Security in recent years has gone from a hard job to a damn near impossible job. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when; that statement has gone from FUD to fact very quickly, so it doesn't surprise me in the least that the "best and brightest" are doing the math, and at least are looking to get paid for tackling the impossible job.
There's one simple answer to this; pay security professionals what they're worth.
Don't give me this bullshit about how the CJCS makes x and InfoSec professionals are demanding 5x. It's not that fucking hard to find a businessman to fill the CJCS position. It can be damn hard to find skilled operators in the InfoSec community. Demand outpaces supply, resulting in increased salaries. Not a fucking hard concept.
Clearly our government doesn't want to pay the appropriate pay rate, which will cost them when they refuse to prioritize funds properly. Can't simplify this any more, so if they don't want to learn, then they're getting what they deserve.
I got my IC job (not at the NSA) after the mess that was the intelligence mess that led to the Iraq War, and I was happy doing the job under Bush and Obama. They weren't perfect, but they at least cared about the truth.
But, I won't work to support a Tea Party/Trump administration. I saved up enough money, not crazy amounts, but enough to take a nice international vacation for a while.
There are java, C++, go, and now C versions of it available. Better hidden services, but limited outproxy support compared to Tor. Always looking for new contributors and users.
In large part, Alexander blamed the press for propagating an image of the NSA that causes people to believe they are being spied on at all times by the U.S. government regardless of their independent actions.... "What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong," the former NSA Director added.
A lot of people think they are doing something wrong, i.e. spying on its own people without warrant or oversight. If the NSA wants to change the image, then they out to change their actions instead of blaming other people for portraying them as they actually are.
Obviously, a lot of people don't care so much about their privacy, but they are worried about the potential abuse of our own government, or uncontrolled elements/people within or working fort that government, engaged in such behavior. If the NSA doesn't like that, then they ought to stop their whining and submit themselves to better oversight.
With an incoming President that admires Putin and is surrounding himself with like-minded people, the chances of anyone putting the breaks on this sort of outrageous behavior are slim.
Great news! I run a private criminal organization that is big on privacy violation, blackmail, cyber crimes and other technical questionable enterprises and we are always looking for unscrupulous talent with previous experience. If your a high performer with the N.S.A., please consider applying with us. I could post a link, but if you don't already know where to apply then you're not the person we are looking for.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
> What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong
The problem here is that many of them are doing something wrong, they are spying on their fellow citizens. Not that moving to the private sector will make them any better. The real problem here is that the NSA - and most of the rest of the US government - has a more and more marked tendency to forget who their real enemies are and start thinking their responsibilities include "controlling" American citizens. If we weren't so worried about the information in your secret repositories was about us rather than actual terrorists maybe we'd be willing to cut you more slack. As it is you already are just a monocle and a Persian cat away from being the villain in a Bond movie.
NSA incubated the flock and released it to the benefit of the rest of the society. I salute, NSA, for your service in securing the US public by raising the new patch, even if those hatchlings are mostly roosting by the bronze bull. Onwards to institutionalize the education and training process, accompanied by relentless recruiting, marketing and the establishment of an alumni system! Collaborate with cyber security and mathematics programs and establish trust with the young. See, even a non-USian can the see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't think that light is necessary a flame in a gas filled mining shaft.
I've seen a lot of young people in tech support. They are universally awful at it too. It's not age.
See subject: It can do so ONLY for gov't. communique not US citizens & as far as my "homeboy" from Syracuse N.Y. in Mr. Alexander? Well - Sir, all I can say is I never voted for it OR wanted it (as I've seen others here say he said "we wanted to be spied on" etc. - which I have YET to see for myself but I haven't read this article either so, feel free to correct me on that).
* This stuff's being going on since Echelon, & probably before it as the telecom industry essentially "hopped into bed" w/ gov't. back as far as 1947 I've heard... but it doesn't make it right, or more importantly, LEGAL (per my subject line above).
APK
P.S.=> As far as their personnel "jumping ship"? Well, he does have a point that "do the math" makes sense - I've heard Mr. Alexander himself is drawing literally 1++ MILLION a year now as salary in the private sector, so go figure - on THAT note? He has a point & it's hard to "argue w/ the numbers"... apk
I think the Pew data shows that a significant majority is against that collection of data, even when the questions are heavily tilted in favor of it. The fact that Democrats are disproportionately in favor of surveillance suggests that there is a good deal of partisanism involved as well.
In any case, fundamentally, this is a constitutional issue and the fundamental mandate of we, the people, is for our government to comply with the US Constitution, no matter what daily polls may say. After all, protection of minorities and unpopular opinions is essential for a free society.
The NSA saw a huge growth in staff, mission creep and mission design in the past decade.
From just supporting other real agencies with background data in the past, the NSA then wanted to design mission, to follow the missions and get the resulting political/mil budget growth.
A huge growth in budget, outside staff allowed in with poor vetting, computer use, decryption expected to track an enemy who would always be connected. Decades of interesting people always using a phone, fax, computer, cell phone, the internet, sat phone, pager, have a bank account, order services online... was just expected to grow.
A system designed to track domestic users with all junk big US/UK brand crypto and all foreign mil who's encrypted command and control was export grade and also junk.
The NSA projected endless growth in domestic spying and that every other nation would advance into export grade junk encrypted gov, banking, command and control networks.
Now the collection issues that MI5,6, CIA, GCHQ hinted at is reality. Once the world knows its been spied on domestically and globally the interesting people can just change their behaviour.
Human spies, covert teams need really great support, mass domestic collection has taken their budgets away for decades.
The decades of easy domestic decryption becomes less easy when interesting people stop using junk brand devices, systems and networks.
They meet face to face, in faith groups, cults, on holiday, sabbaticals and are part of an endless jet set. No phone, fax, junk backdoor and trapdoor US brand crypto network needed. Number stations are one way.
Parallel construction in domestic courts does not work. For a few easy years it looks good and budgets grow. Decades of access is lost once interesting networks go dark once court staff and security cleared lawyers work out what happened to their clients.
Too many outside contractors, the core mission of helping others in the US mil replaced with a rush for budget growth.
The GCHQ faced the same issues in the 1970-80's. They returned to their actual core mission and supported their own staff with merit advancement and better pay, further education.
Looking after workers is a start, vetting needed contractors and then replace the contractors with real staff. Decades of good internal advancement support for staff also helps. Been replaced by or having to work under a contractor is not great. The buddy system now shows how deep and far low quality contractor vetting has reached.
A vast domestic and global spying network can be run by contractors but quality and vetting will slip as any clandestine service knows or later finds out.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The idea of the NSA secretly giving spy evidence to the DEA and FBI to use in prosecuting domestic crimes was something anticipated, but still unconstitutional and illegal --- yet this corrupt rogue "lawmen" using their threat powers to force compliance with their unlawful actions.
The DEA is currently harassing all legal users of prescription pain medications in California with regular urine testing and threats to doctors of suspension if they don't comply with these non-legal requirements.
They are totally out of control and need to be stopped. Organizations like the DEA who grew out of prohibition enforcement need to be retired -- not allowed to find new frontiers to make illegal and prosecute.
Let DHS and the FBI and CIA take over.
> Bringing up 538 is pretty random. But since you did. He was the one pollster
> who consistently said that Trump had at least a 30% chance of winning.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver...
> Reminder: Cubs will win the World Series and, in
> exchange, President Trump will be elected 8 days later.
That was posted May 10th, 2016. I like the response from "That Royals Guy"...
> I think this is all covered in Revelations.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Precisely the one this country was founded on all those years ago
A spectacular goalpost shift from the AC! He shoots, he scores - but nobody in the game actually claimed that Russian hackers were the only reason so he's in a game of his own.
Pathetic really.
How about less silly games and some discussion instead guys?
"They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."
Edward Snowden did exactly that and you fucked him in the ass. Why would anyone else bother?
End the abusive polygraph interrogations of staff and contractors. People are losing families and careers over bullshit technologies!
Wasn't Keith Alexander the guy who bold-faced lied to Congress? Why should we believe anything he says now?
He was a contractor working for BAH - very, very few civil servants make more than $120k/yr
This means mass surveillance is over forever! Hooray, a victory for us.
Honestly what this propaganda stunt is trying to make people believe.
And it is no doubt is working on many.
Next request will be for more funding to retain folks, just the way this game is played
While some of these people may indeed be heroic and decent, they are being asked to do some morally questionable things by the people and agencies managing them. There's only so much conflict any thinking person can take before you have to come down one way or another, and it seems that many are either taking the money, or just don't like the reality of some of what they are being asked to do. Which is sad all around.
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
if you dont wear a cape, everybody knows it
Pros: absolutely amazing skills and knowledge in one constrained area of software security.
Cons: Wanted a ridiculous salary for it, while currently making high 70s (was looking for half a million)
is a war criminal and a liar.
The problem is, is that we have no real hard definitions or lines drawn concerning that data or how it is collected per se. Sure, you have the 4th, but the 4th has been found to only narrowly cover certain instances of online and wireless communication out of a SCOTUS fear of a broad ruling by them curtailing actual legal situations where that data may be obtained.
Basically, we're still in the same boat we were in when this all started, and it's all shades of gray until either the current or future SCOTUS makes a firm ruling on if this data is the same as our letters and effects, or maybe that it is like a note passed through the hands of several classmates before reaching the intended recipient and may be intercepted by the teacher or read by one of the passers: we have no right to any expectation to privacy for or integrity of said data once it leaves our possession.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
You realize all those people leaving the NSA are probably going to work for outside contractors that are doing the exact same things? You know, security companies that other governments hire to hack into yet different countries...or vendors to police departments who want to pwn potential criminals' computers, and so on. I doubt that with their specialized skill sets that they're just going out into the private sector to write reports all day long.
(Although I will say that a job in the private sector is a lot less demoralizing than a government job. Not that everyone in the private sector cares deeply about what they do, but the percentage is a lot higher.)
It's fairly common for folks who work with Classified systems / material / data to eventually get tired of all the bureaucratic bullshit that goes along with it.
Especially if they can work elsewhere for significantly more money and a whole lot less of the aforementioned bullshit / responsibility.
Once you obtain a high level clearance, you also have to maintain it.
Your life has to be squeaky clean.
It has to be verified as such from time to time.
One simple mistake can cost you your clearance and thus, your job.
Lots of rules, regulations and restrictions you have to be willing to live with.
It really gets old after a while when you realize it's not nearly as neat or glamorous as you thought it was going to be.
( Especially since you can't talk about it with anyone )
BTDT. Have zero desire to ever do it again.
the agency's most talented people to leave in favor of private sector jobs,
What better way is there to plant agents into companies who can then subvert products?
What really bothers me is that the people of NSA, these folks who take paltry government salaries to protect this nation, are made to look like they are doing something wrong.
Either pay your employees more or earn the trust of the people you are allegedly "protecting".
The NSA created this situation and was even warned about it. Let them fix it.