On Sun, 13 Apr 2014 01:28:14 +0200 Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl> wrote:
So. Are the NSA guys good guys? Well. They're the enemy of the people, as they invade their privacy and therewith their safety. If you can be blackmailed, studied, influenced, etc. you are weak and vulnerable. Preaching to the choir, I guess.
Well, I get the impression that some of the voices of this choir still need some preaching directed at them =P I noticed something interesting in digital 'security' circles. People who deal with 'security' are, at first sight, technical people and are concerned with issues such as factoring integers, permutations, routing protocols, etc. etc. etc. However, all their technical expertise exists to achieve some political goals. And when you look at the political beliefs of these people, you see that they suck big time. As engineers they may be competent, but there's a step above engineering, and there, they fail.
So I cannot call them good guys by a very long shot.
Are the NSA guys bad guys? Well, they do anything to protect their nation from whatever attack could happen (bad for non-US; me). They steal secrets for their government (bad for non-US; me). They assist foreign secret agencies in subverting or avoiding legal restrictions put in place to protect citizens as (real/wise/elected) politicians see fit. (very bad for non-US; me)
Uh. Yeah. I guess they're the bad guys. I usually feel like they are soldiers on a certain mission, and so no blame comes to them. But I feel more strongly that the organization is build to produce law-breaking, privacy-destroying, unethical, unfriendly, aggressive, anticompetative, distracting and confusing and ultimately just *mean* practices.
So yes: the NSA is *EVIL* to the maximum realistic extend.
The NSA's people enjoy a margin of appreciation. They're doing a job. They have their reasons. But I do believe most of them are keenly aware of the extremely large quantity of thoroughly unethical things their organization is doing, and must be considered at least partially responsible.