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....

[fustakrakich]

Out of all the people in government, those are the only ones?! Amazing!! How did you find out about it?

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...

Re:Honesty dictated removing those words

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting Anonymously for obvious reasons. Many many years ago I did some intelligence work. I would be completely honest about who I was, who I worked for, why I needed the information and what I wanted. I never once had someone who was unhelpful to me. They might not have given me everything that I wanted but even then they might forward me to someone further up who would help. Respect, honesty and saying please goes a long way.

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.

Re:Refreshing

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, well, you know, when a country puts itself so high up the *freedom, truth, and justice* pedestal, you might expect them to play the part, but I guess that's asking too much in the game of battling empires.

So now it's Highlander. There can be only one

Re:Refreshing

[tbannist]

It's always interesting, when you're deliberately doing everything you can to ignore the facts in front of you (there's no need to unmask names like Kislyak's, because the NSA provides that in clear text for their audience - it's the US citizens associated with political rivals that Rice was gunning for) that your first reaction is to start obsessing about homosexuality. What an odd reaction on your part. I understand that you can't trouble yourself to deal with the facts, because you don't like where those facts point. But what's with your fetish, here? Have you considered getting some help with how to communicate about unrelated matters while keeping your sexual fantasies out of the conversation?

Rice has already testified about why she unmasked those people who turned out to be Trump associates. Before they were unmasked she wouldn't have known who they were, and unmasking isn't the same as publishing their identities. They were unmasked because they met with an important foreign dignitary who had chosen not to notify the American government that he was travelling to New York. The U.S. Government does have a legitimate interest in knowing what a foreign dignitary who is making an unannounced visit is up to. But you don't have to take my word for that, you can take reported words of the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee:

"I didn't hear anything to believe that she did anything illegal," Republican Florida Rep. Tom Rooney told CNN of Rice's testimony.

South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, who is one of the lawmakers spearheading the House investigation, told the Daily Caller "nothing that came up in her interview that led me to conclude" that she made inappropriate unmasking requests.

"She was a good witness, answered all our questions," Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican who took over leading the House Russia investigation after Nunes stepped down, told CNN. "I'm not aware of any reason to bring her back."

That's three Republicans, who are in a better position than you to judge the matter, who seem to think their is nothing to your accusations.

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

[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.

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.

Oh, the irony!

[jenningsthecat]

By removing honesty and truthfulness from their mission statement, they are being honest and truthful - perhaps more so that ever!