[jlgreco]

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.

[gojomo]

They are still trying to recruit a diverse, capable group of patriotic employees, so that the workforce has the full range of skills and opinions for it to do its proper mission, and identify and correct any abuses.

If the armchair-ethicist standard is: "if you have any qualms, you'll quit" – then the type of people doing recruiting, and being recruited, and staying in the agency, all become even more self-selected for total devotion to total surveillance than may already exist. Whatever oversight or shame might remain as an internal check would decay. Whatever hints/leaks we get would dry up even further.

That isn't necessarily any better of a result for us. It doesn't necessarily bring reform/correction any sooner.

[Amadou]

I think the better result for us is that the more monolithic the thinking is within the NSA the more they are going to over-step in such a way that even their most ardent supporters outside the agency will have to abandon them.

I'd like to think the no-fly-zoning of Bolivia's president is an example of that sort of thinking exposing itself for public embarrassment/criticism. Here's hoping they keep digging their own hole deeper and deeper.

[selimthegrim]

Blast from the past (wrt monolithic thinking):

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/197...

http://www.parsarts.com/2010/11/29/tehran-wikileaks-1979-cab...

http://wikileaks.org/cable/1979/08/79TEHRAN8980.html

No wonder even Cyrus Vance couldn't save the State Dept. from becoming a giant noodly appendage after Carter.

[jlgreco]

If we want to keep the "bad people" diluted in these organizations, then should all of us be looking for the next Enron so that we can do some community service by hopping on that ship?

[gojomo]

I'm not arguing that there's a duty to join-and-reform. (Though, if that were the only or best way to fix the problem, it would be the most sensible thing to do, even if somewhat uncomfortable.)

I'm just saying the simplistic "you must quit if you have qualms" standard shouldn't have an automatic presumption of either effectiveness or righteousness.

This is especially true about an old, powerful, and sovereignty-claiming institution like the USG and its security organs. They are beyond easy influence through either simple boycotts or idealistic infiltrations, and you can't easily ignore them or wait-them-out.

[mikeash]

Yes, it's important to note that there are not people who are simply toiling away, objecting to the work, and reluctantly carrying it out. These are people publicly advocating for the organization, and trying to get more people to join it.

[gojomo]

Given that the NSA is likely to exist in some form no matter what, would an NSA with more fresh blood in it, of varying ages and competencies and ideologies, be more prone to abuse, or less prone to abuse?

You seem to be assuming that every person joining the NSA makes it worse, and that's not clear to me. In particular, a small, cohesive, monocultural institution will be more likely to commit abuses and more able to keep them secret.

[mikeash]

And you seem to be assuming that the NSA's abusiveness can be determined by the rank-and-file, when it looks to me to be completely due to orders from the top (up to and including the President).

So a good guy joins the NSA and tries to effect change. What happens? They tell him "no". If he refuses to carry out his job, they replace him and get somebody else. If he shuts up and works within the system and eventually reaches a position of real power, then refuses to abuse... the people with power over the NSA as a whole replace him and get somebody else.