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Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

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Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#71

Post by kenjackson »

eli wrote: post #47
mikeash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no sympathy. They willingly represent the organization. Nobody is forcing them to stay. They could leave, but they don't, thus implicitly accepting it.

I willingly live in a country that conducts surveillance. I could leave, but I don't. I guess I'm complicit too.

Indeed. Any of us as US citizens frankly are only slightly less to blame than those employees. We elected those people passing the orders. I haven't heard of a single recall vote as a result of this. Not even one riot. And we enjoy whatever fruits are the result of the surveillance.

I'm really disappointed with the actions and arguments.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#72

Post by jlgreco »

gojomo wrote: post #64
mikeash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no sympathy. They willingly represent the organization. Nobody is forcing them to stay. They could leave, but they don't, thus implicitly accepting it.

Quitting in disgust is one signal a person can send. But what if that makes the problem worse rather than better, by removing from the agency those people most able to sense and push-back against secret abuses?

So is the hypothesis that these recruiters are continuing to publicly defend and sell the NSA so that behind closed doors they can spend their time trying to rein the NSA back in? I don't buy it, and even if it were true I would not accept that is a proper tradeoff.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#73

Post by Kylekramer »

electic wrote: post #63
Kylekramer wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the fear of not being able to provide for you or your family takes precedence over privacy concerns for the vast majority of people. There was a news report about how 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck last week. I'd argue saying "they could leave" assumes a lot.

You do not have to sell your soul to feed your family. Trust me, they can get another job. The reality is the pay is good and these people do not care what their organization does.

You saying "trust me" doesn't feed their family. Looking at my Facebook page, there are dozen of people I personally know desperate for jobs. Even their belief that working for the NSA was selling their soul was taken for granted, most of them would take it.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#74

Post by rhizome »

gojomo wrote: post #64
mikeash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no sympathy. They willingly represent the organization. Nobody is forcing them to stay. They could leave, but they don't, thus implicitly accepting it.

Quitting in disgust is one signal a person can send. But what if that makes the problem worse rather than better, by removing from the agency those people most able to sense and push-back against secret abuses?

Since things usually have to get worse before they get better, the situation you describe would merely accelerate the disease that causes the NSA to be a problem for us all.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#75

Post by mikeash »

embolism wrote: post #51
mikeash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no sympathy. They willingly represent the organization. Nobody is forcing them to stay. They could leave, but they don't, thus implicitly accepting it.

Except that we don't really know what the organization does. We only have insinuations by Snowden and detractors against the US. We do have evidence that they conduct massive surveillance could be unconstitutional. We do not have evidence that they are abusing this, and more importantly we don't know whether they have been able to save lives. It could be that the people who work there know about positive life-saving…

There is no need to demonstrate that the intelligence is actively being misused. The simple fact that collecting it is unconstitutional and abusive is enough.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#76

Post by mikeash »

eli wrote: post #47
mikeash wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no sympathy. They willingly represent the organization. Nobody is forcing them to stay. They could leave, but they don't, thus implicitly accepting it.

I willingly live in a country that conducts surveillance. I could leave, but I don't. I guess I'm complicit too.

Are you actively supporting those parts of the country that do it? There's a vast gulf between simply living there, and actively recruiting new spies to spy on your own people.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#77

Post by Sven7 »

HSO wrote: post #50

This is brilliant. Instead of that less than half-assed interview Charlie Rose did with Obama, we should have had those students go at it.

Students can ask all the questions they want (of Facebook and Goldman Sachs too). At the end of the day the only question that matters is who is going to pay off those little student loans.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#78

Post by rhizome »

HSO wrote: post #46
hkmurakami wrote: post #4

I have some sympathy for the recruiters since they really have no say in the high level decision making in the organization. They may not even be involved with domestic spying of citizens. But on the other hand they continue to stay at the organization so while I do feel some sympathy for their predicament,I guess it's really just up to each person to figure out whether they're really okay with staying there, given a…

The part where they try to hide behind "we are just doing our jobs" and "it's the politicians who generate the requirements" reminded me of SS members or concentration camp guards who later also claimed we just did our job .

Conveniently forgetting the whole, "defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic," thing.

Re: Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio]

#80

Post by DanBC »

jlgreco wrote: post #43
DanBC wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales of horse meat rose after food contamination scares in UK. Also, we want ethical people working for them, because then there's more people to say "Is this legal?" when an order for intelligence comes in.

Horse meat was not the issue; the issue was mislabeled cow meat. What did cow meat sales do after the cow meat contamination news in the UK? I don't buy the classic "change the organization from within" line. If that were the proper thing to encourage then we should all be running out looking for the most despicable corporations to work for and the most horrendous governments to pay taxes to.

While many people avoided cheap cow meat products there were a few people intrigued by the idea of horse meat.

I agree the "change the organisation from within" line is weak.

But I also think that there are many people who still think "You only need to worry if you have something to hide" and who don't see a problem with what NSA does. I guess those people will believe the NSA obeys the law.

I could understand people thinking the GCHQ box is "just a cache". Collecting the data isn't a problem; looking through the data for targeted information (grepping the specific name of a terrorist, for example) is ok; it's only a problem if they start to look at everything. And those people won't think that collection is the same as looking. It's not something I believe myself, but I can see how others might.

Also, as has been mentioned, cognitive dissonance. People rationalise and justify weird things all the time. I don't see that being different when they're looking for work.

I'm not saying that not a single person has decided to not work for NSA! Obviously, there's probably many people who would have been fine with spying on foreign nations but very uncomfortable with the idea of spying on citizens.

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