PREVIEW: In The Crosshairs: How I Became the Target of an NSA Power Struggle, by Greg Hansen

a reply to: greghansen

This is way over my head, and most likely unrelated, but what do you think about this?

US aerospace command moving comms gear back to Cold War bunker
news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: greghansen

This sounds like general hierarchical status maintenance dynamics; similar behaviors can be seen in corporate America.

My ex-wife's godfather was lead chemist at one of the refineries in Texas City before he retired. He had two patents from when he worked there (the company owned them of course) and would have had more but his boss quashed most of his ideas because they either made the boss look inept or made some process much more efficient.

I've had ideas for minor changes to be implemented on a per-unit level in two different companies I've worked for that when multiplied out by number of units within each company, made for savings in the amount of millions over years.. And of course, none of that made its way to me.

None of what you describe is much of a surprise.

a reply to: Jukiodone

I mean 2 million separate pieces of data per hour - it may be correlated or not. "Data" could be an email, phone conversation, MW Word doc, photo, etc. That was ten years ago. I worked briefly on a program that ingested terabytes of ELINT information on a daily basis.

a reply to: jadedANDcynical

There's more to the story and conspiracy theorists should love this. Despite the fact that my work was valued by one division in the NSA, other divisions (those responsible for technology development) wanted to kill it. My guess is that my employer was in on the game. Why? Because I got my salary cut once and then finally booted off the contract for good. Now my former employer is advertising my job. The reason is that, because of the way contractors bill, 1 + 1 us actually greater than 2 when it comes to billable hours. Two junior people will bring in more than one senior person regardless of how much that person is paid.

a reply to: Stormdancer777

I have not heard of this but probably a good idea. There should be redundancy in all communications capabilities and storing one in a bunker is pretty safe. BTW I once, long ago, went to a NORAD facility. To get there we had to take a plane with skis on it. You couldn't see the site from the air. When we landed a big white door opened up in the side of a mountain. It was all very sci fi.

a reply to: Sweepsalot

"I think that you are guarding your real reasons for doing this."

Which would be what exactly?

a reply to: greghansen
Yesterday was one of those days. You may have been having one as well, so let's start over.

First off, thanks for taking time out of your day to address questions and concerns. I have a few questions that may not be important to most, but I find them interesting.

From your experience working in or around NSA, did you get the impression it was one of those companies that is growing too large too manage given its multiple groups im assuming? It seems a power struggle in such an organization could have a detrimental output on our everyday way of life.

a reply to: LoverBoy

NSA is corporate welfare. It is over-staffed by 50%. If people work half the time they are at their desks it is a lot. The waste is tremendous. My story depicts just a tiny fraction of the waste.

I worked at the NSA in the early 90's for 2 years while I was in the Army. I was a signal locator. Before that I spent 4 years at FSA Augsburg. We were never allowed to monitor signal originating from the US. My question is, is the little pizza hut kiosk still in the cafeteria on the 1st floor.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

By the way, no one has to buy my book. Libraries can have it for free and lend it out on Kindle. I would prefer ATS members read it before making comments about it.

a reply to: hellboyz

I don't think so. There is a Starbucks in Ops 2, though.

originally posted by: greghansen
a reply to: Stormdancer777

I have not heard of this but probably a good idea. There should be redundancy in all communications capabilities and storing one in a bunker is pretty safe. BTW I once, long ago, went to a NORAD facility. To get there we had to take a plane with skis on it. You couldn't see the site from the air. When we landed a big white door opened up in the side of a mountain. It was all very sci fi.

WOW thanks for adding that little tidbit about the landing, makes ones imagination run wild.

a reply to: greghansen

If I knew that, then I wouldn't be asking the question. This isn't one of those "I think I know but I want to hear you say it" type things, in case that's how it seems. I just wonder if there is something motivating you other than what you've said. Maybe there isn't. Maybe there is. Maybe you're just bored in life, and this seems like an interesting way to pass the time for a bit. I don't know.

a reply to: Sweepsalot

Sometimes someone has to speak out about abuses in the system. There are companies getting fat off NSA. Many of my enemies were, in fact, employees of other contractors in addition to NSA personnel. Based on a burdened hour salary of $100 per hour (which is an extremely conservative number) those contractors made about $4 million by trying to replace my technology with inferior technology. Now that they have succeeded you can bet that there are large staffs making millions more for the companies. It's all about money.

a reply to: Stormdancer777

I should add that I had no idea where we landed. I wasn't told and if I had asked I wouldn't have been told. It was kind of cool, though.

a reply to: Bybyots

I have to say I agree with all that you said, and it is most perplexing to me.

I am a bit older than most, presently on ATS, so I can remember a bit farther back, and remember a time when the majority of Americans would never have so easily relinquished their basic rights and liberties.

I remember when people worked hard, saved before spending, invested in community, and family was their bedrock. I don't know if a mind eating fog settled over our planet, or if we were clandestinely invaded and taken over by the body snatchers, but I agree that something huge is going to have to happen before we see the change that is needed to make our world the legacy we want to leave our children.

We have failed them miserably, and we have allowed ourselves to be distracted to the point of idiocy. We have no excuses. How we allowed ourselves to be duped into sacrificing self and family for items kept in storage or landfills, and how we still look at the "stars/idols" constantly being projected into our psyche, and not seeing them for what they are - naked, is a mystery to me.

We once used the excuse of fear; fear of lost of jobs, lost of ownership, fear of ________(fill in the blank). We can't use that excuse anymore, because we have nothing left to lose. We have become the walking dead. iZombies or Vampires.

We exist for the sole purpose of consumption. We even accept our label without argument. We are consumers. We are so caught up in our addiction of consuming, we don't notice that we are being consumed.

When someone tries to point out that the bridge is out ahead, it doesn't matter how many signs or flashing lights they put up. The only way to stop the speeding train from plunging into the pit, is to change the track.

Sharing this post with my fellow ATSers, from the belly of the beast.

I can't deny that there are parts of what I read that I found eye opening and interesting, I don't know much about the NSA at all and it's a cool insight into the inner workings most of us will never be privy to but I'll also say this: every employee I ever fired from my comparitively mundane business will spin a story of being the overachieving team player, they'll tell anybody who'll listen of how much they contributed and that in the end it was the incompetence of the higher ups and others that felt threatened by their unrivalled successes who conspired to push them out whereas I can also speak of those same guys who stole, cheated, back stabbed and manipulated their way into unemployment. This is universal in every office environment in the world and yes, tbh even in my business there is waste and an element of mismanagement which I have to take responsibility for. So while I believe that you believe you were maligned I've also seen enough to not take the story of every disgruntled ex employee at face value. The only real difference here is that there's a general interest due to it being taxpayer funded and that the setting is more intriguing than most.

a reply to: MagnaCarta2015

You named it. And it is hurtful to all these real whistleblowers, because it makes them look as if they where also only frustrated employees. No, they were not. They risked their lives. They are sitting behind bars. They are held in ambessies, living in amnesty or are simply in jail.

That's the big difference. Everything else is muddying the waters.

a reply to: Siddharta

You named it. And it is hurtful to all these real whistleblowers, because it makes them look as if they where also only frustrated employees.

Why can't a person be a frustrated employee and a real whistleblower?

What's a real whistleblower anyhow?

I suppose that you already knew that "Big Data" techniques were being employed by the NSA 5 years before Google's paper announcing GFS, and why that is significant to how, exactly how, our privacy has been invaded.

That can be learned from Greg Hansen's release of information too, and if it's old news to some, that's fine, but the reason that American's can't form a well reasoned front against this stuff is because they simply haven't the language or knowledge to articulate it.

Greg's material helps with that.

greghansen:

a reply to: elysiumfire

"once as a traitor to the American people"
Let me get this straight - anyone who has ever worked for NSA is a traitor? How about the other Intelligence agencies. Those, too?

Okay Greg, your response to me clears up a few suspicions. However, my use of the word 'traitor' wasn't an actual accusation from me, but a litmus test I applied to gauge your character and conscience for my own benefit. At least now I know you are human, and can be engaged with in a civil conversation. Cheers for that.

I was born at the start of the sixties, and it was an entirely different world back then than it today. Modern society dines on paranoia and avarice. The latter is easily explained, the former hides revelations of true reasons for Western government behaviour. Those reasons for why Western governments collude and act the way they do, not only against real and unreal enemies, but also against their own citizens, would (I believe) if allowed to become public dismantle the last vestiges of societal order and cause a collapse of the systems and infrastructure.

You see, being a child of the sixties, I was brought up to respect the noble principles my parents and grandparents learned from theirs. Principles that through a consensus of abidance to them glued society in such a way that all citizens from whichever town or city or village they hailed from, could look at one another and say there is a fellow countryman or woman. Whatever differences existed between us, each of us knew that we could abide in peace and without distrust. That world has gone now.

I look back and think it as nothing more than an illusion, a lie that was in place as a form of control. Idealistic, yes it was, an idealistic lie, but then all forms of control are contained within a shell of idealism, and as long as it resonates with the conscience of a person, he or she will hand power over to those they perceive as leaders, including those people who self-claim faculties of leadership. If there is one absolute that I recognise today, it is that there isn't a single current leader of any country in the world who merits their privileged position as a leader, and I see no one coming through who could merit it either.

You see the thing is, they are no leaders any more, only managers in the employ, not of the people, but of groups of self-interest who seek to control human affairs for their own continued socio-economic level and status. It is their singular vision and agenda we are all embroiled in, and which we work for. If you disagree with their vision and agenda, you are labelled a dissenter in the least, and a terrorist at the worst. It is so hard to live by the principles of one's conscience, and that makes it very hard to stay (or want to be) engaged in modern society without being critical or turning away from it. We are becoming ever more habituated to the paranoia and avarice which is the stench exuded by today's politics...politics that has lost all semblance of honour and principal.

We all know that global surveillance is a tool for monitoring control of people. Granted, most of the shenanigans that people get up to in their personal daily affairs will not be remotely interesting to the surveillance agencies. It may titillate them, and afford them a laugh or two, but what the surveillance structure is for is to raise levels of interest where threats to the control (read vision and agenda) can be recognised and dealt with accordingly. Of course, I'm not simply writing about real threats to one's country from extremists in other countries, but more about domestic challenges to the vision and agenda by ordinary people who still hold to noble idealistic principals.

Millions of people in Western societies do still cherish many of the noble and idealistic principals their parents and grandparents, and their's before them, fought and died for. They didn't give their lives in struggle for the type of modern world that contemporary politics has steered us into. Nor did they die for a modernity where the unmerited are lauded and rewarded for failure and failings (read bankers).

The mass surveillance structures are merely the sensors detecting infringement. The militarised police forces are for the control of the soft underbelly of society, the ordinary people (or should that be 'cogs'?), whereas the real military is for the profit-generating wars. We all know this now, we can see it.

In the end, it will all collapse, because it is inevitable that the groups of self-interest will turn on one another as the power games will play out within that circle like some pseudo-Shakespearean drama. You've seen it yourself, and experienced the play directly. Nothing that you can tell us will change a damn thing. There is no revelation you can air that will compel the people to action. It will be absorbed and habituated to. You are today's talking point, and tomorrow, it will be someone else. This is why I ended my prior post to you with the words...who gives a #!