NSA Deletes 'Honesty' and 'Openness' From Core Values (theintercept.com)

An anonymous shares a report: The National Security Agency maintains a page on its website that outlines its mission statement. But earlier this month, the agency made a discreet change: It removed "honesty" as its top priority. Since at least May 2016, the surveillance agency had featured honesty as the first of four "core values" listed on NSA.gov, alongside "respect for the law," "integrity," and "transparency." The agency vowed on the site to "be truthful with each other." On January 12, however, the NSA removed the mission statement page -- which can still be viewed through the Internet Archive -- and replaced it with a new version. Now, the parts about honesty and the pledge to be truthful have been deleted. The agency's new top value is "commitment to service," which it says means "excellence in the pursuit of our critical mission." Those are not the only striking alterations. In its old core values, the NSA explained that it would strive to be deserving of the "great trust" placed in it by national leaders and American citizens. It said that it would "honor the public's need for openness." But those phrases are now gone; all references to "trust," "honor," and "openness" have disappeared.

Comments

They're being honest about one thing....

[DewDude]

They never cared about any of that shit before...they're just now being open about the fact the only thing they care about is fucking the american public and violating our foruth admendment rights.

this government is invalid.

Re:They're being honest about one thing....

[ScentCone]

You're confused. The only people interested in screwing with you are the end-user consumers of what the NSA does. Say, Susan Rice, in Obama's White House. If your communications (or meta data about them) were collected, it would still take someone like Rice to say, "find and give me that person's name" according to her whims. Which she did at length, while digging for dirt on her boss's political rivals and in the service of greasing the skids for Hillary Clinton's pending coronation. The NSA provides tools. It's the people who choose to use those tools you need to complain about. So when you say "this government is invalid," you need to be clear that you have some reason to think there's someone pulling more Susan Rice type behavior. Otherwise, you're talking about "the previous administration," which is an important distinction.

Re:They're being honest about one thing....

[ScentCone]

By all means! If you've got evidence that anything even APPROACHING the behavior on display under Obama was done by, say, Bush (like the Clinton campaign and DNC paying a British operative to compile a fictional narrative from Russian operatives to use as a phony excuse to get a FISA warrant to eavesdrop on political rivals) ... then by all means, let's hear it!

Yes, the narrative that Trump was working with the Russians to "hack the election" and whatnot is, indeed, a delusion. The entire notion was trotted out as a feeble excuse for why the Democrats' insanely bad choice of candidate lost the election. You know it, we all know it, and even the highly partisan Clinton-supporting FBI guy who got her off the hook on her felony mishandling of classified information knew and said there's no there, there. Yes, fantasy delusion. The people who are still saying, "Trump's going to prison for treason with the Russians!" started out looking silly, and have been going farther off the rails ever since.

Re: They're being honest about one thing....

[Zero__Kelvin]

What we now know, as of this moment, is that you are a moron. For the rest we'll have to wait for Mueller to complete his task. Well that, and we know Trump is out for himself and doesn't give a fuck about anyone but himself. Time will tell with regards to the consequences of his sociopathaty fueled by the ignorance of dumbfuck like yourself.

Re:They're being honest about one thing....

[turkeyfish]

What on earth are you talking about? The recent CR just approved will only last until 8 February.

Despite all the hype and bloviating, little progess has been made in actually solving the problems that matter. Take ocean acification for instance. In 300 years at the current rate of acidification, virtually all life in the ocean will disappear. Given that humans get 50% of all their protein from the oceans, this will have profound effects. Indeed, there is already wide spread evidence of this. Oysters are disappearing from the menus everywhere. Pteropods, the base of much of the marine food chain are rapidly declining in abundance. Unfortunately, pretending such problems aren't there and doing nothing about it isn't going to prevent a lifeless ocean.

Honesty dictated removing those words

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

There's nothing "open" about a spying agency, and to be effective spies they need to be dishonest (at least in the field).

I just hope "respect for (US) law" is really still a thing over there. Things don't look so good over at other agencies...

Refreshing

[ScentCone]

So, now their mission as a surreptitious spy agency dealing with lots of information they can't talk about is no longer being lied about on a PR page. Good. That earlier silliness is especially ironic, given its presence during the previous administration, which appears to have been using that agency's tools against domestic political rivals. Yeah, that was all warm-and-fuzzy "being honest with one another" and "completely transparent" behavior. Unless the agency's executive branch bosses didn't like you, in which case it was the exact opposite. Not that that's the NSA's fault, as an agency - that's entirely on their then-management in the White House, and those in the White House granted the power to troll through signal intelligence and the ability to unmask citizens from their collected communications. Here's looking at you, Susan Rice.

Big surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me how an agency which violates the constitution and spies on Americans can be allowed to exist? They're worse then the sexual assaults the TSA illegal does daily.

Re:Big surprise

[Arzaboa]

I've been patted down dozens of times. Not once was there anything sexual about it. Someone brushing their hands by my nuts doesn't constitute (#metoo) sexual assault, no matter what I think about it.

--
If only I had more fingers -- Some Guy

Re:Big surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation - https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fourth_amendment

It doesn't take Rand or Ron to read the 4th amendment and tell that the NSA and TSA are regular violators.

Re:Big surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

so you think secret fisa courts with secret gag orders that you aren't allowed to challenge are all constitutional?

And this means what?

[bobbied]

Maybe these things should simply be assumed and don't need to appear in every mission statement know to man?

I know folks will make this into "See They don't CARE about being honest! They took it out of their mission statement!" but I think that's a bit of overreach. Maybe they just assume that honest and ethical activity is always required and they want to highlight what the organization actually does in its mission statement, not how they do it.

And if you think about their activity... Openness and transparency might not be a good thing to put in a mission statement where it could be misconstrued by individuals in the organization dedicated to the clandestine collection of information.

I can see dropping "Openness"

[mykepredko]

They're a spy organization for god's sake.

But, "honesty"? I guess in the Trump White House it doesn't matter, which is unfortunate because the information is going to be used to place Americans in harm's way and would be critical in negotiating with other countries (trade, arms reduction, etc.).

Not exactly a long-held core value

[Lucas123]

Since at least May 2016 (whoa... that long!), the surveillance agency had featured honesty as the first of four "core values" listed on NSA.gov. They're being more honest now by not attempting to deceive people into believing that they'll open about their work above other values, such as "commitment to service." Just because they removed the feel-good language doesn't mean they'll not continue to be working in the nation's best interests and within the law. But, publications need page views, and this is certainly click-bait worthy.

No EXECUTIVE oversight

[micahraleigh]

The ENTIRE department of Justice and PLENTY of intelligence agencies run without any oversight from ELECTED officials.

Chuck Schumer himself mentioned the week Trump was elected the intelligence community has six ways past sunday to fight anyone they don't like.

That includes voters.

That includes the American people.

The president will get held accountable based on what he can pull off, but he has NO control over these organizations that are supposed to operate in his branch of government.

The DoJ and the intel orgs see it as their job to attack anyone in the party they don't like. This is why there are all these removed text messages among the high ranks of the FBI. They are trying to cover up the Russia style corruption going on.

That means these are POLITICAL offices now and need to be scrapped with every change in office.

Trump should be able to do with all these guys what Clinton did with the US attorneys when he took office: fire them all!

If there is any conflict between what the FBI wants and what the voters want, the FBI MUST LOSE. Voters know better!