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."

Comments

Cue the hipocrisy...

[CajunArson]

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.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[vtcodger]

All well and good. The NSA possibly protects us from our enemies. But who protects us from the NSA? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[epyT-R]

A government that believes in, upholds, and understands the constitution.. A 180 from what we have atm.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Nyder]

All well and good. The NSA possibly protects us from our enemies. But who protects us from the NSA? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

But so far the NSA hasn't been protecting us for our enemies. In fact, they are doing so bad at protecting us, the Russian had no problem making everyone vote for Trump. So either the NSA is doing a good job or the NSA fails badly at it's mission.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[H3lldr0p]

That's a nice troll you have there. You've completely made up two positions and then put them in opposition to each other.

I don't know of anyone hoping for the agency's destruction. I know I don't. I understand that they have an important roll to play in national security. What I do want is the ability to examine the effectiveness of their actions. What I do want is the ability to hold them legally culpable when they screw up and target the innocent and unwary without legal justification. The line used in the blurb is akin to "They were following orders" which doesn't hold moral or legal water. And maybe that's why they can't get the best and brightest anymore. If you can't find the justification to yourself to keep doing the job, maybe it's the job that needs to change.

As for the agency itself, this is not an either-or position and I would hold the same position for the FBI and CIA. We, the people, need to be able to examine fully the actions of our government and decide for ourselves if this is what we want. Hiding the results by reproducing them in triplicate, losing two copies, burying the third in soft peat for six months before recycling it for fire-starters isn't doing that.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Ambassador Kosh]

Actually the NSA has focused more on hacking and putting make sure crypto is weaker than it should be. Some algorithms are even no longer used due to this reason. If the NSA was seriously trying to protect the country they would be working to make sure the USA systems are much better protected and that means better security by default and better crypto.

The NSA could have worked to make Windows, OSX, Linux, Android, iOS and internet of things stuff more secure by default and pushed for real security standards and tools in programmers to help make the software more secure.

The USA is simply a higher value target than other computer systems due to the money in the economy and we will never gain as much from being able to break into other systems as they have to gain breaking into our systems.

The NSA has failed at helping protect the country and destroyed almost any security work they do try and do since they have no credibility anymore. It will take decades to repair the damage if they even try at all.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Bite The Pillow]

It's the perfect troll. Say something obvious, and include over the top cynicism. It's the pattern for a large percentage of +5 mods here.

Say something that people agree with emotionally, not factually, get +5, and now everyone has this opinion reinforced. People on the fence are swayed because it was agreed with by at least 3 others.

And the worst part, factual replies are buried because they have had less time to be moderated. So rebuttals don't appear as prominently.

It is groupthink, and it happens every day. My point is to recognize it not as a communication strategy, but as an ego strategy. Why else state the obvious? Yes there are people focusing on this facet, and others on a different facet, and those cannot be aligned. Obvious, oversimplified, and unnecessary.

But you can't argue against it, because facts get buried, and people are fact resistant anyway. So we get the perfect troll. The unintentional, trolling for ego stroking and upmods. And it flies under the radar, as it isn't the classic troll for replies. It's beautiful, in a twisted way.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

This is actually one of the major criticisms(right after the whole 'makes grim mockery of the 4th amendment' class of problems) of the NSA's choice of focus.

When they focus on doing security their work is viewed pretty favorably. When they tolerate(and even create, as in the case of Dual_EC_DRGB) vulnerabilities in order to preserve their ability to play offense; they not only raise serious questions about government surveillance; but they actively sabotage the 'security' part of their mission in exchange for some surveillance data of questionable utility.

There is absolutely nothing contradictory about opposing the NSA's enthusiasm for playing black-hat while also being of the opinion that, if anything, we need vastly more information security work being done. Espionage isn't of zero value; but it is a very dangerous choice of focus when we depend on computers as much or more as anybody else; and mostly use the same basic hardware and software. We have had very little reason, aside from some vague handwaving and 'trust us' to believe that the NSA's (admittedly technically impressive) exploitation of the fact that security is mostly awful has done us even close to enough good to offset the harm done by the fact that security is mostly awful.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Seriously, WTF is this comment and why is it (currently) +4 Interesting?

#1. Many, many people who have been most critical of the NSA's activities have been skeptical of the claim that Russian hackers are the sole reason Trump is president. This includes Glenn Greenwald as well as many in the security community who don't take leaked reports of CIA briefings at face value. I'm not seeing anyone who is anti-NSA spying wholesale accepting the CIA's story. So the premise of your point is not correct.

#2. Even if they DID accept the Putin story... There is no inherent conflict between not wanting a "huge abusive spy agency tracking Americans at all times" and wanting an agency to protect against foreign attack (if one has occurred, which as I said is not certain).

#3. The NSA has done very little that would have prevented the hacks, while actually having done very much to weaken national security-- the kind of thing that facilitates break-ins. They have compromised security algorithms and pushed the RSA to accept them as standards. They have deliberately inserted weaknesses into Cisco products. There are numerous examples of this. If the "Russians" has hacked us because of weak technology, the NSA very well could be to blame. The assumption that they're some kind of shield against attacks appears to be backwards.

#4. Podesta's emails were reportedly hacked via social engineering. Explain to me how you think the NSA's role has been stopping human beings from typing in their own Gmail login information when tricked to do so.

#5. Finally, elucidate on the connection you make between a "huge spy agency tracking Americans at all times" and an alleged nation state hacking campaign. What the hell does the surveillance state agency spying on all citizen activity have to do with these hacks? If anything, the alleged influence of Russian agents in our election occurred WHILE the mass-spying is occurring. Therefore, by your logic, the NSA should stop all spying to stop Putin. Right?. Right??

In short, your post makes no sense, it is not "insightful"-- it connects dots that don't have anything to do with each other. Worse, it is in some ways dangerous because it is really an attack on questioning authority. There is zero contradiction in opposing an all-powerful state surveillance agency on one hand vs. a corrupted electoral system on the other.

Not to mention that those reports of foreigners meddling in our election originate from an agency with a notorious decades of history in... well, meddling with foreign elections.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[hey!]

This is a false dichotomy.

The issue is protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens, whether from interference from foreign powers or unaccountable elements in our own government. Or is government automatically our friend now? Who exactly is trying to have it both ways?

So there is really only one issue: the liberty of Americans. Granted you can't do a perfect job, and at some point you're taking away more liberty than, statistically speaking, you're saving. That's when you've gone too far. And I suspect this may have a great deal to do with the morale of the techies in the agency, who understand this better than the political mandarins they report to.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[fahrbot-bot]

Say something that people agree with emotionally, not factually, get +5, and now everyone has this opinion reinforced. People on the fence are swayed because it was agreed with by at least 3 others. And the worst part, factual replies are buried because they have had less time to be moderated. So rebuttals don't appear as prominently.

And you just explained the Trump campaign and victory.

For example, fundamentally, both candidates agreed with rust belt voters that jobs were fewer and declining. Clinton told them about progress and that those jobs were probably gone for good, but they would get help learning and getting new jobs that would be better suited to the changing world. Trump blamed job losses on immigrants, greed and (in general) "others" and told them he would get their (same) jobs back. Clinton's statements are (probably) more based in reality, but Trump's makes people feel better - about themselves and their future - and reassures them that they just can keep going like before -- without having to learn new skills, get more education or be better prepared for the future. (I sympathize, but who among us here doesn't understand the need for continuing education and learning new, possibly different, skills to stay relevant in the workforce?)

Then, to digress a bit, Trump and Pence bribe Carrier with $7M (over 10 years) in tax breaks to save ~1000 jobs and the employees rejoice - ignoring the fact the those Indiana employees just paid that bribe themselves. So lucky that Pence is (was) Governor of Indiana.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even before it was not much better. Especially the top brass of the NSA is totally detached from reality. When I read " 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. " then I can only say this is self-inflicted. The NSA did indeed engage in unconstitutional mass surveillance and other illegal activity. So far they did not admit to it, did not ask for forgiveness, and above all have absolutely nothing to show for given the billions in tax dollars that they wasted all these decades. It is one of these useless self-fulfilling three letter agencies that accomplish nothing.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[RazorSharp]

A government that believes in, upholds, and understands the constitution.. A 180 from what we have atm.

The Constitution hasn't mattered since the Civil War. What a court declares as "Constitutional" matters far more than anything else. At some point we as a nation need to accept that the Constitution is outdated and ill-suited to function as the blueprint of our government. We're a Federalist nation in name only as the Federal government uses the Commerce Clause excuse anytime it wants to intercede in something or they just stick and carrot states with federal funds when that's more convenient.

Back to the original point, the checks and balances that are worked into the Constitution also do a poor job of actually providing checks and balances in our bi-partisan environment. Check and balances have just become partisan tools both parties use to attack the other when they can get away with it. When it comes to protecting citizen's rights, both parties seem to agree that doing so isn't in their best interests, so various federal bureaus and agencies are permitted to do as they see fit. In essence, Constitution or no Constitution, no one watches the watchmen. Romanticizing the Constitution is detrimental to our rights as it feeds into the lies and illusions the government wants to distract us with.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[PvtVoid]

If the NSA was seriously trying to protect the country they would be working to make sure the USA systems are much better protected and that means better security by default and better crypto.

At one time, this is exactly what they did. Read up on the history of DES S-boxes sometime.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[fahrbot-bot]

Some, perhaps much, of what you say may be true, but I think you're painting with too wide a brush. I think Van Jones said it better on the Dec 5th episode of The Daily Show:

“You have a core of people who were actually delighted by some of those inflammatory comments,” Jones said of Trump supporters. “Those people, I would call bigots. But then there were the people who found Trump’s words distasteful, but not disqualifying, because they had so much other economic pain and problems that were not being talked to, and those were the people that cost us the election.”

On those who “felt that the elite had sold them down the river in both parties,” Jones admitted, “They weren’t wrong. We did not give them an opportunity to come to our side the way we should have.”

“Everybody that voted for Trump was not voting for every crazy thing he said,” Jones added, saying that many voters were “holding their noses” when they cast their ballots on both sides of the aisle. Because of that, he said he has faith that they will stand up to Trump if and when he tries to enact some of his more outrageous policies.

“Listen, Trump is much worse than anybody in this country is willing to accept,” he said, “but a lot of his voters are much better and I don’t want to give them away.”

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

...our bi-partisan environment...

A democracy cannot work properly with only two major factions. It is too close to the one party system.
Look at Swiss democracy for an example.
And turn off that TV.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Russian" didn't make people vote for Trump. It was 8 years of Obama and the threat of 4 more years of his policies that caused reactionary voting patterns. Clinton in Merkel's pocket, aligned with globalist-Euro interests and big money, is bad for Russia. Trump is only looking out for the USA, he's not beholden to Euro masters or Wall Street, so he's the logical choice for Americans.

It's incidental that Russia favored a nationalistic US president.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Loki_1929]

Clinton said generally (rarely ever actually talking directly to rust belt workers because her campaign took those lifelong Democrat voters for granted) that manufacturing jobs were gone forever and that was a good thing because trade is good for everyone. There was some lip service done to suggest retraining and better jobs were coming at some point, but nothing remotely specific. That was her basic message on the subject and she didn't spend a whole lot of time discussing it.

Trump talked directly to rust belt blue collar workers, telling them that decades of trade policy - much of it championed by the Clintons - was rewarding and accelerating moving American manufacturing jobs overseas at the expense of the American worker, but that he would reverse that policy and stem the flow and even come up with ways to bring jobs like that back to the US.

Somehow we act surprised that so many of the second, third, even fourth generation blue collar rust belt workers who spent decades doing the one job they know, the one job their fathers and grandfathers knew, the job that put food on the table and a roof over their family's head, who always voted for Democrats because Democrats were the union worker's best ally, who have watched their friends and family members lose those great jobs in droves, who've watched entire factories and factory towns disappear before their eyes, who sit at home every night wondering how long they have before their only means of earning a living wage disappears - we're surprised that these voters abandoned the candidate who told them it's better this way and voted for the candidate who promised to fix it.

Or we just call them racists and sexists because we're pissy our candidate didn't win. Either way, it's total bullshit. Rust belt blue collar workers have voted solidly Democrat for generations because Democrats helped them put food on the table. Their entire way of life is now under threat, in no small part because of the work of Democrats (and to be fair, Republicans too!) on things like trade policy. It should be no surprise they'd get on board with just about anyone who will throw them a lifeline, especially when the other side is only offering to throw them a boat anchor.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[lgw]

At some point we as a nation need to accept that the Constitution is outdated and ill-suited to function as the blueprint of our government.

... said every tyrant ever. There's a process for amending the Constitution. It requires a supermajority for a reason. The fact that a slim majority can't run rampant over the 49% is a feature, not a bug.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

> that for most of them, this was entirely about putting food on the table

Eh, cut it out with the economic insecurity canard.

Trump lost the portion of the vote coming from people making under $50K/yr.

Furthermore, at the county level - children earning more than their parents was correlated with larger trump gains.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point we as a nation need to accept that the Constitution is outdated and ill-suited to function as the blueprint of our government.

... said every tyrant ever. There's a process for amending the Constitution. It requires a supermajority for a reason. The fact that a slim majority can't run rampant over the 49% is a feature, not a bug.

Here is the amendments I'd add, in no particular order.

1) Districts must be drawn by simple algorithm with no inputs beyond simple population density. The mathematicians can tell help us figure out the details before the formal text is written.

2) The presidential election must be done by the popular vote. The artificial construct of electors distorts the value of peoples votes, making some more valuable than others, and making most effectively worthless. This goes against the principles of our democracy. States are not people. Corporations are not people. People are people.

3) All national elections must use either ranked voting or must vote multiple times to insure that the clear best choice is achieved.

4) Voting must be open two weeks prior to the final day. Obtaining any kind of required ID must take no more than one day and have no cost to the voter. In the case of a presidential election, if at least one state supports voting multiple times to determine the best choice, the final vote must be cast no more than two weeks after the normal end date.

5) Everyone is allowed two hours paid time off to vote. Your employer may verify that you voted, but of course not how you voted.

6) All national elections require a paper ballot trail. The ballot may be printed by a computer, but must be shown to the voter prior to submitting the final vote.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Anonymous Coward]

And notice that Alexander still didn't state that the NSA wasn't spying on all the people all the time -- he just complained that the press shared the idea with we, the people.

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[ClickOnThis]

But who watches the watchers that are watching the watchers?

Turtles?

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[ClickOnThis]

Rough summary of your post: instill fear in the voters, and they will flock to an authoritarian who claims to be the only one who can save them.

http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11...

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[tinkerton]

Aha! No, it's watchers all the way down.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[geoskd]

You can't have it both ways.

Of course it goes both ways. The various government agencies have been vastly overrstepping their bounds in pursuit of achieving their legal mandate, and the Russians have been actively tampering with our election. The problem is not that the NSA is doing their job, it is the actual job they have been mandated to perform is unconscionable.

In response to his "they are heros" statement, I say no, they are no better than the German soldiers who performed the Nazis work. Those soldiers were also given a legal mandate to perform their jobs, and they performed their jobs well. Very few of them ever stood up and said that the job itself was evil. The few US government agency employees who have stood up and said this is wrong have been persecuted by the government instead of being hailed as heros. The very fact this guy can't tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is a very ominous sign for our country and indeed the world at large.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[tinkerton]

A government that believes in, upholds, and understands the constitution.. A 180 from what we have atm.

That's more or less what Snowden has shown, that the NSA has gone off the rails in their megalomanic ambition to collect everything about everyone. And you can be sure that a lot of people who work at the NSA have paid attention. And that they have a lot less patriotic pride to motivate them now, which helps if you get paid more elsewhere. And Obama has given the NSA more power and is now transfering that power to Trump.

So it's plausible that they don't want to be any part of it anymore, but it's still speculation. What if these people who are leaving are now just going to do the same job as contractor? I have no idea. You sure can't trust Keith Alexander on it because he's in complete denial: oh, so it's just an image problem. A PR issue!

"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."

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[King_TJ]

Sure, SOME people might do that. But most people I know (who range Libertarian to Conservative) are neither that concerned about the veracity of the claims that Russians were responsible for the leaked Hillary campaign emails OR concerned that the NSA is bleeding some talent right now.

As far as I'm concerned, the NSA serves a useful purpose, but it's one of those organizations that's been entrusted with a whole lot of power. Our government has a history of doing that at times, and inevitably, it comes back to haunt the general public when boundaries are overstepped and too many leaders aren't willing to reign them in again. I think we have this with today's FBI to an extent, and I put the Federal Reserve in the same category. The ATF has proven to abuse its power too (although they've been a bit more quiet in recent years).

I find it interesting that much of the anger over Wikileaks and the Hillary email isn't even attempting to debunk what was leaked as fake, edited or wrong. It's all focused on outrage that it leaked. So in other words, the truth got out and people reacted to the facts that were revealed. Funny, but I'm pretty ok with that.

As details come out (much of it thanks to Snowden) about just what the NSA has been doing, it's easy to see why people might be upset. There are entire categories of communication content that were being monitored wholesale. That implies that they've got way too many people on the payroll, as that was never the NSA's purpose. By comparison, that would be like your local police department engaging in surveillance of every single resident in your community, in a "proactive effort to stop crime".

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[ChrisMaple]

The United States is a union of states. We are already far too close to being ruled by popular fads, the popular election of the President would make the current situation worse.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[rtb61]

Even worse, horror of horrors they exposed how much the NSA spies on their own. Those with the most privacy at the NSA, fucking worthless political appointees, those with the least privacy, everyone else. From the earliest youth every child is taught that those others children who spies on others, who tattle on them in the most exaggerated fashion for the least infringement, those who say one thing to the face whilst saying another behind their back, those who spread lies, are truly awful and are best to be avoided at all times. Even as children they know, that those kids will grow up to be perverts, sick people never to be trusted.

I am sure many leave not just for the money but to feel clean again, all their efforts tainted by the corrupt worthless political appointees. They know their real job is not securing the nation for the majority, but the suppression of the majority by an insane psychopathic minority.

Uphold justice, uphold democracy, uphold freedom and you are a hero, do the opposite of that and you are nothing but a slimy quisling minion, trusted by none, including those who employ them and spy on them like no other. They also toss them aside and destroy them based upon the slightest accusation whilst political appointees get away with murder, actual murder, with a pat of the back for a job well done.

We will know we those left are true heroes, when they refuse to obey illegal orders and haul the corrupt political appointees before the courts, as well as the corrupt politicians passing on instructions and never to forget those corrupt corporate executives feeding the psychopathic egos and lust driving all this insanity.

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[ChrisMaple]

Landowners have a stake in the success of the country. Renters have much less of a stake, and are far more likely vote in a manner that makes the maintenance of property difficult.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[ChrisMaple]

And who is Trump beholden to? Well, we don't know. Because he didn't release his taxes.

Complete nonsequitur.

Furthermore, if there were anything even hinting at a flaw in Trump's tax returns, the already-established-as-corrupt IRS would have "leaked" it.

Remember, Trump does business through corporations he controls. His personal tax returns could easily show nothing but salaries from dozens of corporations. Of course, then you'd be screaming that the tax forms of those corporations must be publicized also.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[ChrisMaple]

Please don't use "in the sack" and "Hillary" in the same sentence, it's nauseating.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[Loki_1929]

Trump ran businesses; he didn't set US trade policy and he didn't pass free trade agreements. Did he outsource jobs himself? Absolutely, though his response to that has been that he acted as any businessman would - reacting to changes in the marketplace which occurred (at least in part) because of US trade policy and free trade agreements. Did Trump ship some blue collar jobs overseas? Certainly. Was he "instrumental" in the process? No, just one of many business leaders who did it to save a buck. Does that make him a saint? Of course not.

As for the rust belt workers getting that they were being lied to, there's two pieces there. First, Trump was the only candidate in the general election even talking to them. Whether he was feeding them lies or not, the other candidate was arrogantly explaining to other audiences how great free trade (and all the outsourcing that comes with it) was for America even as blue collar rust belt workers were losing jobs in droves and scared shitless that they (and the families depending on them) were going to be out in the street any day now. Trump may have fed them a lie about saving their jobs, but at least he talked to them and didn't try to "elite-splain" to them why losing the only jobs they've ever known and that put food on their tables was a good thing.

Second, none of us can yet say for certain that Trump was telling them lies. We can assert that even if he reverses US trade policy, there's enough inertia in play to continue bleeding blue collar jobs and the jobs that left won't come back. We can further assert that even if outsourcing were somehow halted that automation would still put a sizable portion of those rust belt workers out of the job all the same. But the fact is that we won't know for sure until a) we see what he even does (and what Congress is willing to go along with) and b) what impact those actions actually have.

And I'm not saying you must or even should "give Trump a chance"; I'm simply commenting on what got us here. And if Democrats want to have any hope whatsoever of retaking much of anything in 2020, they better stop painting the rust belt with a broad brush of racism and sexism accusations and start figuring out what they're going to offer those voters on the economics front to win them back. If this election should have taught the Democratic party anything, it's that a large part of their critical core voters is made up of people who don't vote blindly for "D", but rather who vote for whomever they think will help them keep putting food on the table. And that whomever can include a real asshole if it's their only option, as evidenced by all the lifelong Democrats who showed up at the polls in November and cast a vote for Trump.

Democrats/liberals/progressives need to stop calling them stupid, naive, racist, sexist, and all the other crap flying around and start coming up with a way to address their needs. These are hard-working people watching their entire way of life crumble before their eyes. Help them or lose them, along with every election until they're all dead generations from now.

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[Ol Olsoc]

So basically you want the northeast and California deciding who's President and nobody else matters, right? Because that's what you get when you forget that this is the United STATES and elect a President your way.

The way it works now is a feature, not a bug.

All I think is needed is a majority. the candidate who gets the most votes wins. You obviously like your canddate to win regardless of the rest of the country. If you cannot get a majority of the votes, why should your candidate win?

I do fully understand that the party who received less votes in teh past several elections for president are orgasmic over the electoral college version that allows them to take power via minority. A great gig when you get it.

It's because you are inhernently undemocratic.

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[cdwiegand]

The way we have it right now, liberals in Texas need not vote - their vote does not matter. End of story. Same for conservatives in California. Because their vote is rounded out, they are not represented in the role of President. You can say they can vote for the House and Senate, but those are often rounded out as well with gerrymandered districts.

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[will_die]

You didn't read the linked to article and apply basic reasoning to see that they cherry picked speeches from both of them to build up the list and then compared the number of get that article.
It is a worthless article.

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[slashdot_commentator]

We also need to accept that we live in a unitary and take education expenses to the national level.

Ah yes, so one day we can aspire for the American educational system work as well as VA funded hospital care.

It's not right that the quality of education receives is dependent on where they live.

While I can generally agree with that notion, economic management by the US federal gov't has not gotten to the point where it can equitably redistribute funds to every US citizen. (Thank God.)

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...

[slashdot_commentator]

It was 8 years of Obama and the threat of 4 more years of his policies that caused reactionary voting patterns.

Bullshit. The US rejected a neocon warmonger in 2008, an investment banker in 2012, and the Democrats decided to run a candidate that essentially promised to be the handmaiden of both (among her many other problems). Given a choice of steadily boiling to death, or going full dumbass with a low possibility of a better life, the significant portion of America decided the latter.

The American public would have re-elected Obama for a third term over Trump, if the CotUS had allowed it.

Re: Cue the hipocrisy...

[djinn6]

What? Since when does renting make you less American? You realize the majority of renters are young people who haven't yet acquired enough money to buy a house? People who are the children of land owners? They are the people who will be impacted by public policy 50 years down the road, and they have every reason to vote for a better future for America.

"Protect US"

[zelkovamoon]

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?

Oh boy, you really have no clue

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:No Suprise

[SpankiMonki]

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.

I, for one, look forward to the WikiLeaks dump of Rosie O'Donnel's e-mails.

And a little dig at Snowden

[khallow]

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?

Fix the link in the summary

[MobyDisk]

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.

Re:Fix the link in the summary

[Hognoxious]

There are links, but they're classified.

BRB, door.

You Absolutely Can Have It Both Ways

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Re: You Absolutely Can Have It Both Ways

[Type44Q]

Incorrect. Humint = CIA; sigint/elint = NSA.

Re: You Absolutely Can Have It Both Ways

[schnell]

NSA = domestic surveillance CIA = foreign surveillance The NSA has no reason to exist other than to spy on US citizens, for all other things (actual investigations) there is the FBI, police etc.
Off course now it's all under the umbrella of DHS so it doesn't actually matter who is in charge, the spying will continue. Reply to This

Sorry, but pretty much exactly wrong.

The NSA is authorized to collect signals intelligence only on foreign citizens. Hence the uproar over domestics being caught up in the surveillance nets and not being redacted immediately as they are supposed to be. This isn't an arbitrary distinction, but because under US law, American citizens are entitled to the protection of the 4th amendment against unwarranted search or seizure, whereas foreign citizens are not. So the setup was that the NSA could warrant-less-ly wiretap the rest of the world, but needed to scrub out the information of Americans that got caught in the haul.

I don't know how closely those rules were followed for most of the NSA's history (and neither do you). But that was/is the NSA's charter. Oh, and the NSA also has a secondary mission of Information Assurance, which is how the government is supposed to protect its own classified information.

Probably the foreign/domestic split you're thinking of is the way that the FBI and CIA are structured. The CIA cannot surveil/investigate/spy on/shoot American citizens, and the FBI can only surveil/investigate/spy on/shoot people inside the US.

Also, while we're at it, neither the NSA nor the CIA is part of the "umbrella of DHS." The CIA rolls up to the Director of National Intelligence as the head of the nation's "intelligence community," whereas the NSA is part of the Department of Defense. DHS itself has a law enforcement role but no "spying" mandate at all other than activities directly involved in fulfilling that law enforcement mandate.

I'm surprised

[ledow]

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.

How about this

[sacrilicious]

"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?

Re:No Suprise

[Britz]

People over here in Europa defended the NSA spying on the basis that it isn't a dictatorship, but a democracy doing it. So it's all good. To which Snowden replied that the surveillance state has become a "Turnkey Tyranny".

Will Trump be the one that turns that key? Find out after the commercial break, when "The Apprentice" returns.

Re:paltry government salaries?

[sg_oneill]

Snowden made something like 200,000 a year to be a sys admin. That is high even in Silicon Valley.

Snowden did not work for the NSA, he workde briefly for the CIA but took a private sector job for Booz Allen, and was then contracted to the NSA

Private contractings a whole different kettle of fish. And I suspect a lot of these leaving govt jobs are leaving to go work at private contractors wherein they'll just end up back at the agency they where at before albeit as a contractor, and costing the govt 3x as much, and none of the accountability required of federal employees.

Are made to look bad?

[QuietLagoon]

..."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.

Re:Are made to look bad?

[AthanasiusKircher]

"They are doing exactly what our nation has asked them to do to protect us. They are the heroes."...

I also think this misunderstands the word "hero." Normally we don't equate the word "hero" with "doing exactly what we ask" of someone. A hero is generally somebody who goes beyond what the normal person would do -- who aspires to nobler intentions, greater achievements, unusual bravery, courage in the face of overwhelming odds, etc.

I don't mean to take anything away from those who do public service -- whether military, police, firefighters, paramedics, teachers, etc. Most of them are admirable people, but does just "showing up for work" qualify them to be "heroes"? I think there's some modern slippage in meaning that tends to say "yes," but that's not what the word "hero" has traditionally meant.

I'm sure there are some NSA people who are legitimate "heroes" in the traditional sense -- people who go far beyond what an average person might do, or what we'd ask a reasonable person to do, in service of the U.S. And I laud their efforts.

But just because "our nation asked" a number of NSA folks to spy on people in unconstitutional or illegal ways doesn't make their actions right, let alone "noble," and certainly not "heroic." Even in the service of "protecting us." And even IF you agree with the spying, it STILL doesn't make most people who just do their job "heroes," especially if they aren't doing anything particularly courageous, etc.

Shame on this NSA Director for co-opting the language of heroism to try to legitimize his own bad actions and decisions. It is a nefarious distortion and appropriation of the term that detracts from the legitimate heroes who serve us in all sorts of ways.

Unfortunately invoking Godwin's Law

[mykepredko]

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)?

Re: No Suprise

[OzPeter]

That would suggest that, his angry demeanor notwithstanding, he makes strategic decisions based on emotional impulse. His current achievements would suggest otherwise.

Dumps on Boing after Boeing CEO talks about trade with China
Dumps on Carrier union rep after said rep call's him out for misleading figures
Dumps on SNL just because he doesn't like their parody of him.
Dumps Megan Kelly because he didn't think she treated him fairly.

Which of these is strategic and not emotional?

Not entirely correct

[smooth wombat]

"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.

Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[swillden]

almost as if there were a House and Senate Select Committees on Intelligence. They do a much better job than you're willing to accept, because you want to believe that the republicans are evil, the progressives are good, and that the world is a nice place full of nice people.

I don't believe any of those things... and yet it's clear that the oversight committees have not been doing a good job.

what "we" asked them?

[ooloorie]

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.

Re:paltry government salaries?

[drew_kime]

Once they're in the private sector they're only accountable to the market, which is how it should be.

The point is the the three letter agency isn't accountable for what they do, which is why they're willing to pay three times as much to get them.

Re:No Suprise

[Bing Tsher E]

Santa is a fat old white man. He won't be allowed to oppress any longer.

NSA two mouthed LIARS!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

ALL NSA employees are required to take an oath of office. Part of that oath is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution has several amendments, Number 1 is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Freedom of Speech!!! Yet when some NSA employee tell the world "Whistleblower" abut NSA abuses which are clearly covered by the NSA rules they get thrown in jail - Chelsea Manning or driven from the country - Edward Snowden. And then demands special courts - How the NSA Made Your Legal Defense Illegal - https://mises.org/library/how-....

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!

Re:Cue the hipocrisy...It's ALWAYS like that

[shoor]

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.

Just like the Patent office

[saccade.com]

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.

Re: No Suprise

[geek]

Irrational people like you won't see them as rational. You made up your mind before he did.

The simple answer is the most obvious.

[geekmux]

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.

If you want to change the "image"

[xtsigs]

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.

Re:paltry government salaries?

[BlueStrat]

Snowden was a contractor... he worked for Booz Allen Hamilton.....contractors get paid 3 to 4 times their government counterparts.. So trust me these NSA guys who are leaving do get paid a paltry salary.

And as a contractor myself who does work with the NSA, one of the reasons for people leaving that is not being talked about. Is the incredibly over burdensome requirements, procedures, oversight, and plain hoops one has to jump through to do their job.

I refuse to do any jobs that on or around Fort Meade, as you are made to feel like a prisoner with every move or decision you make is logged, tracked, audited, scrutinized, and debated. Life is a living hell under these rules... That is why their leaving.

    Thanks Snowden....

Thanks *Snowden*!?!?

What the hell are you smoking, dude?

Or were you fine with the NSA violating the shit out of people's rights, you're simply upset that since Snowden revealed their criminal acts, the NSA is trying to prevent others working for the NSA from whistle-blowing and revealing further lawlessness, and those measures to prevent their lawbreaking from being revealed inconveniences you?

If you actually do work for the NSA, YOU and people who think like you in the agency are the ones responsible for Snowden and the impending castration of the NSA's powers and capabilities to spy on US citizens wholesale.

People who think as you do should never be or have been allowed to be anywhere near any sort of government power. You and your ilk are the embodiment of the tyranny the Founders predicted and warned us would arise. You deserve a fair trial and a prompt and clean hanging if found guilty. Nothing more.

Strat

Re: There's another problem with Clinton's solutio

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a lot of young people in tech support. They are universally awful at it too. It's not age.

Re:Can you say Oligarchy? I knew you could.

[HornWumpus]

People that voted for the lesser evil. Duh.

Ramp up and the world changes

[AHuxley]

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.

Parallel construction for DEA and FBI?

[lpq]

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.

Heroes?

[Gussington]

"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?

But where are they going?

[SlideRuleGuy]

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.)