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[Scoops Novel]

An article i saw linked to on the Electronic Frontier Foundation site, which had the favorite articles of the week section chosen by the former deputy chief of staff to Ron Wyden. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130810/09240524136/jennifer-hoelzers-insiders-view-administrations-response-to-nsa-surveillance-leaks.shtml. It emphasizes the extent of classification as well as sundry reasons she thought to blame for the lack of trust in the public, who she supported.

There's also a article here describing the reaction to recruitment efforts, https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130704/12162223721/nsa-recruiters-get-smacked-down-university-wisconsin-students.shtml, though admittedly it doesn't give much faith in the site. The question it arises in me is who is choosing to work for the less benevolent government organizations at the moment and why, which we'll include the military, NSA and presumably others within. I've asked about the military recruitment before, and i hear that the college scheme is an element, but nevertheless I'd like to hear more about it.

[Mrhappyface]

Much of recruiting is done from DOD schools or schools that have a large military child population. In my old DOD highschool, the navy were passing out fliers on the nuclear program for the higher math kids.

[alway]

No, not really. Just like any employer, they go to where the good students are. RIT had tons of NSA recruitment, since we had a really big network security department, complete with courses on cracking, defense against it, and malware creation, as well as anti-malware software.

Fact of the matter is this: all the 'noble stand against evil' stuff is a pile of horse excrement. You take the jobs you can get because your refusal to work for them won't do shit; they'll just get someone else who is just as good as you. And in terms of employment, it's where you want to be. Suddenly you've got great pay, great benefits, an exceedingly stable job, and one which makes use of your skills.

[SalmonGod]

Fact of the matter is this: all the 'noble stand against evil' stuff is a pile of horse excrement. You take the jobs you can get because your refusal to work for them won't do shit; they'll just get someone else who is just as good as you. And in terms of employment, it's where you want to be. Suddenly you've got great pay, great benefits, an exceedingly stable job, and one which makes use of your skills.

This is a complicated issue.  People need work to support themselves and all that.  Doesn't change the fact that this stance is self-fulfilling prophecy.  And it's one we're going to have to face if we want any chance at altering the direction in which society is headed.

[Frumple]

"Someone else will commit the immoral act if I don't, so it's acceptable for me to commit that act."

That. Doesn't work

[Mrhappyface]

Please stop associating an occupation as something automatically immoral. It offers good benefits, along with many good connections. Tricare alone is amazing.

[Frumple]

It offers good benefits, along with many good connections. Tricare alone is amazing.

... that has absolutely nothing to do with the ethical nature of the occupation.

Information security or whatev' isn't necessarily immoral, no, but if you'd consider not taking the job as a "noble stand against evil", then there's probably something ethically troubling about it.

[Mrhappyface]

There's nothing inherently unethical about it, and I say this because you're acting like these people are brainwashed or evil. It's a counter-espionage and intelligence organization that deals with both overseas and domestic affairs.

[SalmonGod]

The fact that there's nothing inherently unethical about an occupation doesn't mean that the track record of a specific employer for that occupation isn't ethically relevant.

[Mrhappyface]

The NSA hasn't done anything that wasn't implied or what I deem morally dubious.

[Frumple]

There's nothing inherently unethical about it, and I say this because you're acting like these people are brainwashed or evil. It's a counter-espionage and intelligence organization that deals with both overseas and domestic affairs.

Unethical means unethical, not evil (though the latter is generally the former), and it's incredibly easy to commit unethical acts without being brainwashed or evil -- alway's line of justification is a really bloody obvious example of how it happens, as is the fact that pretty grievous violations of what once was at least a facsimile of a right to privacy is something you're willing to write off as "counter-espionage and intelligence that deals with overseas and domestic affairs". The country in general, and definitely the organizations in question, consider their unethical acts to have a sufficient practical payoff to justify those acts on a pragmatic basis, but that does not somehow magically make those acts ethical action.

And as SG puts it, yes. Not all action performed by these groups are unethical, but we've been finding that quite a bit is. And if a person's willing to perform those unethical actions because the pay (directly monetary or otherwise) is good, well. That says most of what needs to be said on that subject.

The NSA hasn't done anything that wasn't implied or what I deem morally dubious.

... as you might imagine, there's a fair number of people that would disagree with you at this point.

[Mrhappyface]

There's no proof that what they did was unethical. There was no blackmail or kidnappings or other 1984-esque spook stories. It's common knowledge after all. You can even look up their mission statements on Wikipedia or an overview of the Patriot Act.

[SalmonGod]

There's plenty of examples of the information they gather being used in ways that I consider unethical, especially if you take into account the way information gathered by intelligence agencies is shared with other branches of law enforcement and the stuff they do with it.

And if it were common knowledge, I wouldn't have been called a conspiracy theorist so many hundreds of times over the past several years for talking about it.

[Mrhappyface]

There's plenty of examples of the information they gather being used in ways that I consider unethical, especially if you take into account the way information gathered by intelligence agencies is shared with other branches of law enforcement and the stuff they do with it.

And if it were common knowledge, I wouldn't have been called a conspiracy theorist so many hundreds of times over the past several years for talking about it.

No, those people are just idiots. Did everyone have spontaneous amnesia when the Patriot Act was signed and what it entailed? Domestic surveillance has always been a thing, since the beginning of the 20th century.

[SalmonGod]

There's plenty of examples of the information they gather being used in ways that I consider unethical, especially if you take into account the way information gathered by intelligence agencies is shared with other branches of law enforcement and the stuff they do with it.

And if it were common knowledge, I wouldn't have been called a conspiracy theorist so many hundreds of times over the past several years for talking about it.

No, those people are just idiots. Did everyone have spontaneous amnesia when the Patriot Act was signed and what it entailed? Domestic surveillance has always been a thing, since the beginning of the 20th century.

They were also, in my experience, the majority.  Thus, not common knowledge.