What Is Wrong With The Working Stiffs At NSA?

[ThomWV]

I understand the culture, I worked for them when I was in the army. Still, in these times with a domestic surveillance program that any rational person - and certainly people with the level of education it takes to land a job at Fort Mead - can see to be illegal why has no one stood up and said this is enough. Hasn't anyone simply refused to commit this crime in the name of a miscreant executive?

What about the communications companies. Surly someone working at a switching point or a computer complex somewhere in the maze which is our electronic world will stand up for what is right in this world.

They can cloak the program with secrecy but somewhere there are real people doing some nuts and bolts work. This system had to be installed, it has to be operated, it has to be maintained and the results have to somehow be analyzed or at least fucking printed. Where is the technician? Where is the secretary? All it would take is a single GS-7 loyal to the United States of American to bring this entire charade to an immediate end. Where is that person?

[file83]

1. Good question. The intimidation factor must be HUGE in the

silence we are hearing. The technicians/operators are probably too afraid or don't feel much like "saving the country", especially if it means facing possible jail time and/or destruction of their careers.

In the line of work they are in, if they lose their security clearance, that rules out a whole industry that they could be employed with.

Finally, they don't know who they can trust.

[lectrobyte]

2. some Jack Bauer-wannabe shoots them in the head, assuming that

anyone in the press would even listen to them.

[originalpckelly]

3. How do you think we learned about this?

You don't think someone broke into the NSA right? Mr. Tice was one of the supposed sources, but many other people were supposed to have come forward (you don't right a newspaper story on one man's testimony.)

My question is why the soldiers at GITMO and Abu Graib didn't refuse to carry out their orders. They should have known torture is not allowed. I guess if you thought one of the people who helped al-Qaeda was in front of you, blind hatred would take over.

We must remember that justice is not blind with hatred, but with impartiality. If we strike out blindly in rage and torture innocent (or even guilty) people, the individuals who died on 9/11 will not have anymore justice than if we had just not done anything. We cannot should not commit crimes in the names of the dead. It is an awful thing to do.

[The2ndWheel]

4. Yeah, who saw this coming

You establish a giant secret agency, and then we're all shocked when it's abused. What did we expect?

With agencies like DARPA, always developing smaller and better technology, it's only going to get worse. It's the "Information Age". To think that wouldn't be abused by governments and corporations...

You create spy agencies, they're going to spy. You create weapons of war, you're going to have war. You create a way of life where something is never enough, you're not going to have enough.

[flashdebadge]

5. Huge NASA contracts are riding on compliancy.

ie...keep your mouth shut and keep the contract. Personally, I say spill the beans. And while I'm on the soap box, I think it's time to cut these billion dollar tax grabs for NASA that are use to look at caterpillar terds on Mars and start using that money for something worth while...say....feeding the hungary?

[Jose Diablo]

6. I doubt there is a working stiff at the switching center

most are unmanned and it's all done from the megacenters.

[moondust]

7. Job security/zeal.

Any domestic spying probably has a special supersecret classification and anyone working on it has been very carefully screened. Lots of security zealots in those agencies who play the game religiously. No doubt they have been repeatedly "reminded" of the consequences of leaking.

[soothsayer]

8. They compartmentalize everything so you don't know where your

part fits into the larger puzzle.