If I say "jihad" will the NSA pay attention to me?

Not that I want the NSA to turn its attentions in my direction.  Then again, I'm not sure that it makes any difference to me, whether one way or the other.  But, if they are spending gobs of time and effort and loads of money to read every American's electronically-written word, and to listen in on all of our telephone conversations, then you can see how that word might get their attention, can't you?

Jihad.  There; I said it again.  Let's see what happens now.

Well, so far. . .nothing.  Maybe later.

Perhaps the question should be:  If the NSA notices me, will somebody there take any interest in me?  The  most likely answer to that question would have to be "no."  My consolation is to tell myself that induced humility builds character.  Which causes me to realize that at this point in my life I seem to have accumulated an abundance of character.

The NSA is America's National Security Administration.  It's been around for a long time, having been established in the early 1950s.  For the most part, the NSA has done a pretty good job of keeping itself out of the news and away from the public consciousness.

Until now.

The NSA does lots of secret stuff, but there's nothing secret about the fact that it exists, and that it exists to spy on people.  In fact, the NSA has a slick web site that advertises itself in a reasonably up-front fashion.  A quick search through the web site reveals that the word "spy" is used in numerous background and historical articles, but it doesn't seem to turn up in anything like a mission statement.  Nonetheless, it's a spy agency; we all seem to agree on that.

With the name-brand recognition that the NSA has going for it, you might wonder what the current discombobulation is all about.  We're fretting about all the spying that they do, but we've always known about it, so what's the big deal?

Here's the setup

A few weeks ago a low-level contracted employee at the NSA by the name of Edward Snowden skipped town with a bag of tricks purloined from that critical part of the US Government.  He revealed to the world via press interviews that he had left the United States for Hong Kong and had in his possession evidence of extensive and hitherto unknown spying by the NSA on telephone conversations, emails and other electronic communications taking place among Americans.  For altruistic reasons, he declared, this evidence should be made public and shared with the world.

Predictably, shaking a hornet's nest makes for a lot of excitement.  Nobody likes being spied upon, and Americans are notoriously anxious about any indication that their government is sneaking around behind their backs--metaphorically and electronically speaking--to secretly learn what they are saying, thinking or doing.  The core issues are trust and privacy:  we don't trust the government to be in possession of personal things that we consider to be private.

In reality, of course, if we are to be totally honest with ourselves, we simply don't trust anybody--government or otherwise--to be in possession of any information about ourselves that we consider to be private, except when we unilaterally and/or capriciously choose otherwise.  Yes, we Americans are gloriously contradictory creatures, aren't we?

So, what are we to do with the NSA, and what are we to do with Mr. Snowden?

Here are some ideas.  Future revelations might eventually show these ideas to be either sound, or screwy, or both, but that's for then; here's what we have for now.

What should be done with the NSA?

Keep the NSA going; it's a vital piece of the nation's security apparatus.  To believe otherwise is to hold a distinctly non-pragmatic view of the nature of contemporary challenges to national security.

At the same time, it poses an internal threat.  That threat has caused an unsatisfied need for transparency of its operational scope, and that need must be met in order for Americans to trust what their government does on their behalf.  The result will have to be operational limitations.

This isn't likely to be straight-up in any way.  This is going to be unbelievably legalistic, which is the way it should be if we Americans are to continue to identify ourselves as a nation governed by the rule of law and not the rule of men (or women).  For example, clearly we don't want anybody--especially the government--to have unrestricted ability to listen to our telephone conversations, or to read our emails to each other.  So, there must be legal restrictions on those activities, but how are they to be described?  What will they look like?  We have to believe that any restrictions on these activities will end up being very complex. 

The process of getting to those limitations won't be quick, and it won't be easy.  After all, we've been spying on ourselves for centuries, so we have a lot of baggage to carry along.  If you think otherwise, then consider the American Revolution:  our own struggle for independence from the British mother country was supported by only about one third of the colonial population of the time; the other two thirds was evenly split between those who supported Crown and Parliament, and those who didn't care either way and just wanted to be left alone.  With the exception of those who wanted nothing to do with the politics or the war, each side spied on the other, as well as on those in the middle, too.

More recently, the Patriot Act has legally-enabled the NSA to do the things that we are now griping about.  We need a reconsideration of that Act.  It is law that is periodically renewed by Congress.  Only a few months ago some members of the Senate and the House were speaking up to challenge its most recent renewal, or at least to challenge its renewal without significant changes to curb certain authorities granted in the Act.  Those curbs were not implemented; perhaps they should have been made.

One more thing about the NSA:  they have a real big security hole in their operations that needs to be plugged, and plugged fast.  It's horrific to learn that an individual--low-level or high-level, it doesn't make any difference--could go to work in an NSA location and then easily copy files onto a flash drive without any oversight and simply walk out the door with the darn thing in his pocket. 

Speaking as a person who has been around Information Technology for his entire professional lifetime, I know that stealing electronic files can be prevented.  Sure, there will always be sneaky bastards who will want to cause problems, but the people in charge know this, and they also know how to hire sneaky anti-bastards as part of the security protocol.

What should be done with what's-his-name?

And what of Mr. Snowden?  Should he be called a hero or a bum?  How will his name be remembered?  Will anybody remember him after a year or two?

What should our government do with Mr. Snowden?

Before making that decision, let's consider a few things that haven't seen much public comment.

First, this guy is ethically-compromised.  To have the job and the security clearance that he had, Mr. Snowden must have stated his commitment to abide by all manner of secrecy and non-disclosure agreements.  He has broken that commitment.  It's hard to see that as an honorable act.  Maybe it's not impossible, but it's really hard to see the honor in this.

Next, let's ask the question "why?"  Mr. Snowden's self-proclaimed explanation is along the lines of "it's not right to live in a country where these things go on."  At this point, it's not clear just what "these things" are, since the initial allegations of unrestricted listening and reading by government agencies have apparently been proven false by NSA disclosures provided during Congressional testimony.  If those allegations are false, then we must conclude that Mr. Snowden knew them to be false from the beginning, since his knowledge of those activities was exhaustive, according to him.  If he lied about a core issue, then what of the remainder of his statements is believable?  Unless, of course, his knowledge was not as complete as claimed, in which case there's a whole different can of worms to be opened.

In any case, he is damaged goods to any future employer, because without full disclosure to explain his actions Mr. Snowden's trustworthiness will always be in question.  Somebody who has turned once will always be thought of as somebody who can turn again.  He is a smart man, so he must have figured this out ahead of time.  In so doing, he would reasonably devise some sort of supporting arrangement for himself as a type of compensation for likely future losses due to his "damaged goods" characteristic.  I would very much like to know what is the nature of that arrangement; wouldn't you, too?

And so, we do not know why Mr. Snowden has done what he has done, nor what he expects it to yield for him in the long run.  Not yet, anyway.

Finally, he has no protection from our "whistle-blower" laws, because he is not engaging in "whistle-blowing" activities.  Those laws would provide protection only if he is describing illegal activities; at this point, all things that he has described about NSA spying programs have been about legal undertakings.

Everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion, but there are lots of ways for a person in the United States of America to express opinions without breaking a commitment, stealing something of possibly great value and making off for a foreign land.

Perhaps some future bizarre turn of events will give this guy a lucky break and his actions will end up being classified as "opinions."  In the meantime, though, it seems that our government should pursue all relevant legal remedies against Mr. Snowden in a timely and energetic fashion.

All coins have two sides. . .and there are many coins

And, at the same time, the government needs to enact legal remedies against its own behavior so that Americans have enough trust in whatever spying is going on so that they will allow those things to continue.

In the meantime, there's a whole lot of other governing that needs doing, so resolving internal and external spying issues must not be all-consuming.  These are important issues, but other things are at least as important.

I'm still here. . .no sign of the NSA yet.

And the beat goes on.