This headline doesn't seem like it's actually news. Replace "NSA" with literally anything else, and it still makes perfect sense.
People who have financial incentives to keep something around typically try to do so.
Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
31–40 of 89 posts
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#32I don't know about the others, but I've been reading Stewart Baker for years, at the Volokh Conspiracy and then later at lawfare blog. He's an authoritarian loon, and I don't agree with a word his ever written, but I'd be willing to bet he believes all of it. He's far too unreasonable to be playing a cynical PR game. Not to say that potential conflicts shouldn't be noted, they absolutely should.
I was thinking something similar, which is that I felt the article was implying that if these people didn't have a financial connection to the NSA their opinions would be different, and I don't think that is the case.
Until Senator Feinstien had her laptop hacked by the CIA I think she actually took what they said at face value and bought into the narrative.
So I can certainly believe that folks donate money to representatives that hold opinions compatible with theirs. I certainly give money to politicians who I feel will represent my view of how things should be run. But when their opinions change, or they move away from what I would like I simply stop giving them money[1].
So what is the cause and what is the effect? That the NSA funnels funds to people who have both a megaphone and a compatible point of view? I don't find that particularly noteworthy.
[1] and as we're talking small amounts of dollars here I am not sure its all that big a deal for them :-)
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#33The whole point of the article is completely irrelevant at this point.
The NSA already built their huge data center in the desert. They've been scooping up data for years. They've been using methods to usurp wireless phone security in order to snoop on what should be secure networks. There's suspicions they've cracked TOR's encryption as well.
Alert the media, the people who support the NSA have financial ties to them.
Even with the recent court ruling, Pandora's box was opened decades ago, and I see no palatable future where anybody is able to close it.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#34This headline doesn't seem like it's actually news. Replace "NSA" with literally anything else, and it still makes perfect sense. People who have financial incentives to keep something around typically try to do so.
In some cases, that's just fine. In others it is a perverse incentive we should reconsider. Prisons, domestic spying, etc.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#35Yes, HSA advocates are secretly biased, and unlike politicians and their campaign ads, their bias is covert.
But that's not the story we need reported on, because this story is preaching to the choir.
The real story is understanding the American public's malleability in the face of advertising/punditry in general. There is a real story analyzing in-depth (and with open-minded sympathy) why real believers in the practice believe that it is actually truly the right thing to do.
I suspect that the public won't understand what's at risk until the IRS starts using NSA collected data to conduct (automated, universal) audits.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#36How again is "lobbying" different from "legalized corruption"? [serious]
Lobbying isn't an inherently dirty thing. It started (and largely remains) a way for people with knowledge of a field outside the politician's bailiwick to inform them of pros/cons to an issue they may not be aware of. Corruption has indeed seeped into the process, but I would prefer experts in a field (on both sides) to inform politicians than have them be clueless on the issues in question. The EFF, the ACLU? Lobby…
> The EFF, the ACLU? Lobbyists. Good lobbyists, but lobbyists nonetheless.
Necessary to counter bad lobbyist. :)
Lobbying: you have more money == you have more influence. Sounds very undemocratic to me.
> I would prefer experts in a field (on both sides) to inform politicians than have them be clueless on the issues in question.
But to have them paid for? If civilians press on their representatives, in their own "free" time, this is the only "lobbying" that I consider "honest".
Lobbies kill democracies. You think, for instance, the US would be in so heavily invested in going to war without military corps spending on lobbying?
I think lobbies are bad. In my country (NL) a lobbyist can walk closer to politicians (like a journalist) then a civilian is allowed to. This is too much.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#37I don't know about the others, but I've been reading Stewart Baker for years, at the Volokh Conspiracy and then later at lawfare blog. He's an authoritarian loon, and I don't agree with a word his ever written, but I'd be willing to bet he believes all of it. He's far too unreasonable to be playing a cynical PR game. Not to say that potential conflicts shouldn't be noted, they absolutely should.
I was thinking something similar, which is that I felt the article was implying that if these people didn't have a financial connection to the NSA their opinions would be different, and I don't think that is the case. Until Senator Feinstien had her laptop hacked by the CIA I think she actually took what they said at face value and bought into the narrative. So I can certainly believe that folks donate money to repre…
>> That the NSA funnels funds to people who have both a megaphone and a compatible point of view?
I don't think you even need to go that far. The underlying phenomenon here is the revolving door. Senior government officials retire into government contractors for their former agencies because that's by far the most lucrative positions open to them. The exception would be if you were completely disgruntled, Snowden isn't going to end up at Booz Allen.
What that means is that we have a shared underlying cause for the two things we are seeing: former senior officials that remain supporters of their agency end up at government contractors and former senior officials that remain supporters of their agency are happy to defend them publicly.
As for the solution to the revolving door, I'd say first we need to raise the salaries of senior government administrators. Every study I've seen shows that low skill government employees are over-compensated and high skill government employees are under-compensated (both as compared to the private sector). Second, we should probably cut down on government contracting. I don't a good reason for it to have grown so large.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#38The problem with most of these examples is that all of these "NSA contractors" are just giant multi-billion dollar revenue companies. I'm sure MSFT is an NSA contractor on one level, but most people would find it weird to classify Microsoft as "A NSA contractor". This is just a consequence of powerful people happening to have a lot of money to invest and thus becoming board members for companies in domains in which t…
SAIC, CSC, CACI, Booz, Leidos? These are multi-billion dollar government welfare recipients.
Is corporate welfare somehow worse than individual welfare? I gather from the tone of your comment that you think it is, but this being the internet, tone is easy to confuse.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#39Pres. Eisenhower gives dire warning: 'We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether saught or unsaught by the Military Industrial Complex' (Jan. 17, 1961) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
Most people view the term "Military Industrial Complex" from the view of the primary definition of complex - "consisting of many different and connected parts".
It seems however, that Eisenhower intended that phrase to use the psychoanalytic definition of complex - "a related group of emotionally significant ideas that are completely or partly repressed and that cause psychic conflict leading to abnormal mental states or behavior". More of a dysfunctional mental state of the nation than an actual physical interaction.
Re: Many of the NSA’s Loudest Defenders Have Financial Ties to NSA Contractors
#40This headline doesn't seem like it's actually news. Replace "NSA" with literally anything else, and it still makes perfect sense. People who have financial incentives to keep something around typically try to do so.
In some cases, that's just fine. In others it is a perverse incentive we should reconsider. Prisons, domestic spying, etc.
Whether it's a good or bad thing is irrelevant. I agree that we should be aware and try to deter some instances, but saying that having skin in the game causes incentives seems like a weird conclusion to me. It should be obvious.