From: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l@odewijk.nl> To: Sean Lynch <seanl@literati.org> Cc: "cypherpunks@cpunks.org" <cypherpunks@cpunks.org>
his documents are genuine. I see no reason for the NSA to be substantially more competent than, say, the OPM.
There's absolutely no reason to think the NSA doesn't have a layered/multi-cell operation wherein a mere contractor is not given access to nation-essential secrets. If there's a foreign spy you want him to
They do have such a layer system. The problem is the fluidity of the people. Soldiers become Contractors become Government Employees become Contractors ad-infinitum. Once cleared, the system has not managed to remain opaque from within. In times past it was -- and that successful model was condemned as having "not prevented" the Sept 2001 bombing. Thus the stovepipe security model was banished; "war effort" requires exorbitant high staffing increases which led to inevitable, and predictable lowering of tactics, techniques and procedures. That trend has since reversed (I would argue pre-Snowden) and the beast is once again slowly shrouding itself within and increasingly outward. As with any good Corporate makeover, with a kinder gentler face. [[ my removal of your excellent government employee summary is not because of any disagreement - whether military or civilian employee, the vast majority are of a mind you described. But, as has been eloquently stated Power Corrupts Absolutely. ]]
shows a certain amount of rot in NSA_Public. The recent Trident leak shows
'NSA_Public' is an excellent characterization. That which we know of the Agency will forever be shadowed by it's hidden complexities. Having exposed a portion of one small stovepipe, the tubing now changes and reworks itself hiding the un-discerned exposed parts, and more closely guarding the vast un-exposed bulk. I use my description of "small" completely intentional. The scale of the "Snowden Topics" is minor compared to the remaining unknowns. Carefully protected within the 'NSA_Closed'. Not only by the regrowing stovepipes, but as well by the people you aptly described as genuinely, legitimately, and correctly striving to maintain the integrity of the beast. Just as they don't understand the oppositions claims aptly describing the illegitimacy of the beast, neither will the opposition. Sadly the two are closer in philosophical agreement than either realize. And probably won't without the benefit of hindsight, whatever sort of post-empirical change allows for the creation of a commonly agreed on framework of reference.