<story><title>Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA</title><url>https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/10/wikimedia-v-nsa/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chippy</author><text>I have some sympathy for our fellow hackers who work as contractors or in big companies, many of them with security clearance. Database engineers, software developers, data experts - the five eyes intelligence agencies directly and indirectly fund many of you readers of HN.&lt;p&gt;They might be becoming increasingly disillusioned with their chosen life and&amp;#x2F;or unable to change course. Perhaps the money is too good, perhaps their contracts too restrictive. They might have inside knowledge and believe that the NSA is in the right, but they would not be able to voice that belief to us, their friends and colleagues. Unable or unwilling to change course if they believe their country is in the wrong and unable or unwilling to speak up in defence if they think it is in the right. I&amp;#x27;d certainly like to talk (in private) to those I knew who at the start of the Snowden affair openly said that he was a traitor and hear what they now think.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cryoshon</author><text>Why sympathize with them? They either decided in bad faith that working on an interesting problem was more important to them than acting ethically, or they are saying &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m just doing my job&amp;quot; also in bad faith. These philosophical decisions are simply malicious relative to the rest of us.&lt;p&gt;There is also the possibility that they have been deluded by nationalism or propaganda in order to believe that a panopticon is acceptable in a democracy, but there isn&amp;#x27;t much we can do to help these people connect the dots between the panopticon they are helping to build and Orwellian thoughtcrime-- we simply don&amp;#x27;t have access to them that we could use to be persuasive, as you mentioned. I think this population of people is actually pretty large among the government contractors.&lt;p&gt;Finally, though you are correct that NSA employees would probably mention this, for the purposes of agencies operating in the public interest in a democracy, the concept of &amp;quot;insider knowledge&amp;quot; is not permissible. I say this not to suggest that we make all the operations of our clandestine groups transparent, but rather to suggest that the complete ignorance the American public has found itself to be in is a byproduct of intentional grooming along the lines of &amp;quot;national security secrets&amp;quot; which really are intentionally crafted backdoors to the process of informed democracy. The citizens not involved in agency day-to-day have a firm need to know the methods and rationales used, and they need to have direct and powerful oversight.&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t have any of these things, currently.</text></comment>
<story><title>Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA</title><url>https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/10/wikimedia-v-nsa/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chippy</author><text>I have some sympathy for our fellow hackers who work as contractors or in big companies, many of them with security clearance. Database engineers, software developers, data experts - the five eyes intelligence agencies directly and indirectly fund many of you readers of HN.&lt;p&gt;They might be becoming increasingly disillusioned with their chosen life and&amp;#x2F;or unable to change course. Perhaps the money is too good, perhaps their contracts too restrictive. They might have inside knowledge and believe that the NSA is in the right, but they would not be able to voice that belief to us, their friends and colleagues. Unable or unwilling to change course if they believe their country is in the wrong and unable or unwilling to speak up in defence if they think it is in the right. I&amp;#x27;d certainly like to talk (in private) to those I knew who at the start of the Snowden affair openly said that he was a traitor and hear what they now think.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>diafygi</author><text>I work in the solar industry, and utilities are increasingly losing talent to the solar industry (my co-founder is one of them). The main reason people are switching is because they see themselves as having a more successful career in the solar industry.&lt;p&gt;How can we make it so security talent has a better career working somewhere else? It could be multi-pronged. A combination of increasing private sector jobs and pay, decreasing public sector funding, and a healthy dose of public shaming might drain spying organizations of some more talent. Other thoughts?</text></comment>