NSA morale down

[coderman]

the portrayals from the brass and insiders is, "the administration is
not showing enough support!".

i have to wonder: how many rank and file are feeling betrayed by the
NSA administration instead?   they're now getting a look into all the
SCI bits they were compartmented from before; able to see a bigger
picture full of invasive technical excesses and legal abuses...

"""
A second former official said NSA workers are polishing up their
résumés and asking that they be cleared — removing any material linked
to classified programs — so they can be sent out to potential
employers. He noted that one employee who processes the résumés said,
“I’ve never seen so many résumés that people want to have cleared in
my life.”
"""

it remains to be seen if they simply jump to private sector who are
just as bad, or pursue less offensive careers entirely.

---

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-morale-down-after-edward-snowden-revelations-former-us-officials-say/2013/12/07/24975c14-5c65-11e3-95c2-13623eb2b0e1_print.html

NSA morale down after Edward Snowden revelations, former U.S. officials say

By Ellen Nakashima, Published: December 7

Morale has taken a hit at the National Security Agency in the wake of
controversy over the agency’s surveillance activities, according to
former officials who say they are dismayed that President Obama has
not visited the agency to show his support.

A White House spokeswoman, Caitlin Hayden, noted that top White House
officials have been to the agency to “express the president’s support
and appreciation for all that NSA does to keep us safe.”

It is not clear whether or when Obama might travel the 23 miles up the
Baltimore-Washington Parkway to visit Fort Meade, the NSA’s
headquarters in Maryland, but agency employees are privately voicing
frustration at what they perceive as White House ambivalence amid the
pounding the agency has taken from critics.

An NSA spokeswoman had no comment.

Obama in June defended the NSA’s surveillance as lawful and said he
welcomed the public debate prompted by revelations from former
contractor Edward Snowden beginning that month.

Though Obama has asserted, for instance, that the NSA’s collection of
virtually all Americans’ phone records is lawful and has saved lives,
the administration has not endorsed legislation that would codify it.
And his recent statements suggest he thinks some of the NSA’s
activities should be constrained.

A senior administration official who was not authorized to speak on
the record said that the White House would normally not endorse
legislation so early in the process but that “it’s been clear . . .
that we prefer legislation” that preserves the phone records program
“while making some changes . . . to potentially strengthen oversight
and transparency.”

Said Hayden: “The president has the highest respect for and pride in
the men and women of the intelligence community who work tirelessly to
protect our nation. He’s expressed that directly to NSA’s leadership
and has praised their work in public. As he said: ‘The men and women
of our intelligence community work every single day to keep us safe
because they love this country and believe in our values. They’re
patriots.’ ”

She noted that in recent weeks, Lisa Monaco, assistant to the
president for homeland security and counterterrorism, and Denis
McDonough, the White House chief of staff, visited Fort Meade “to
express the president’s support and appreciation for all that NSA does
to keep us safe.”’

Supporters of the NSA say staffers are not feeling the love.

“The agency, from top to bottom, leadership to rank and file, feels
that it is had no support from the White House even though it’s been
carrying out publicly approved intelligence missions,” said Joel
Brenner, NSA inspector general from 2002 to 2006. “They feel they’ve
been hung out to dry, and they’re right.”

A former U.S. official — who like several other former officials
interviewed for this story requested anonymity because he still has
dealings with the agency — said: “The president has multiple
constituencies — I get it. But he must agree that the signals
intelligence NSA is providing is one of the most important sources of
intelligence today.

“So if that’s the case, why isn’t the president taking care of one of
the most important elements of the national security apparatus?”

The White House, observers say, is caught between competing desires to
preserve what it has said are valuable national security programs and
to shield the president from criticism from allies abroad and
civil-liberties advocates at home.

Some observers said it is not surprising that Obama would not travel
to Fort Meade before internal and external reviews of surveillance
activities have been completed. The reviews are expected to be done
soon.

The NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, who is retiring in the
spring after 81 / 2 years, has been the most vocal defender of the
agency’s 35,000 employees. In speeches he has noted that more than
6,000 of them went to Iraq and Afghanistan to support the military. He
has spoken of how 22 cryptologists were killed. “They’re the heroes —
not the media leaker,” he said in a September speech, in a reference
to Snowden.

NSA counterterrorism analysts have worked “every weekend for eight
years since I’ve been here. . . . Twenty-four hours a day, seven days
a week, they’re there to defend us,” he said then.

On Thursday, Obama said on MSNBC that he would be proposing “some
self-restraint on the NSA” and “some reforms that can give people more
confidence.”

In an interview with NBC last month, he said: “In some ways, the
technology and the budgets and the capacity [at NSA] have outstripped
the constraints. And we’ve got to rebuild those in the same way that
we’re having to do on a whole series of capacities . . . [such as]
drone operations.”

Civil-liberties advocates generally agree with that sentiment, but
they would go further and say that the NSA’s bulk collection of
domestic phone records is unlawful and ought to be ended.

Former officials note how President George W. Bush paid a visit to the
NSA in January 2006, in the wake of revelations by the New York Times
that the agency engaged in a counterterrorism program of warrantless
surveillance on U.S. soil beginning after the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks. “Bush came out and spoke to the workforce, and the
effect on morale was tremendous,” Brenner said. “There’s been nothing
like that from this White House.”

A second former official said NSA workers are polishing up their
résumés and asking that they be cleared — removing any material linked
to classified programs — so they can be sent out to potential
employers. He noted that one employee who processes the résumés said,
“I’ve never seen so many résumés that people want to have cleared in
my life.”

Morale is “bad overall,” a third former official said. “The news — the
Snowden disclosures — it questions the integrity of the NSA
workforce,” he said. “It’s become very public and very personal.
Literally, neighbors are asking people, ‘Why are you spying on
Grandma?’ And we aren’t. People are feeling bad, beaten down.”