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>>syness+(OP)
I think the tech crowd is in denial about their role in surveillance.

We expect professionals to behave ethically. Doctors and companies working on genetics and cloning for instance are expected to behave ethically and have constraints placed on their work. And with consequences for those behaving unethically.

Yet we have millions of software engineers working on building a surveillance society with no sense of ethics, constraints or consequences.

What we have instead are anachronistic discussions on things like privacy that seem oddly disconnected from 300 years of accumulated wisdom on surveillance, privacy, free speech and liberty to pretend the obvious is not obvious, and delay the need for ethical behavior and introspection. And this from a group of people who have routinely postured extreme zeal for freedom and liberty since the early 90's and produced one Snowden.

That's a pretty bad record by any standards, and indicates the urgent need for self reflection, industry bodies, standards, whistle blower protection and for a wider discussion to insert context, ethics and history into the debate.

The point about privacy is not you, no one cares what you are doing so an individual perspective here has zero value, but building the infrastructure and ability to track what everyone in a society is doing, and preempt any threat to entrenched interests and status quo. An individual may not need or value privacy but a healthy society definitely needs it.

>>tobbyb+Bl
I left the NSA a few months ago largely for these reasons. While I knew I personally couldn't do much (if anything) to stem the onslaught against human rights, I knew at the very least I didn't want my life's work contributing to it. So I left, leaving behind a very secure sysadmin position with good salary, six weeks of paid vacation and incredible health benefits. Now I'm a 1099 independent contractor for a financial services company with zero job security. But the freedom of burden on my conscience has been worth it.

>>vocatu+W41
You probably had some serious inner battle about this. I applaud you for taking a stand, these kinds of decisions aren't easy. It gives me hope that there are still people out there who care more about doing the right thing than tapping to a source of money. Tangentially, I read somewhere months ago there was an effort by a group of activist people who built a tent near the NSA building and invited the people working there to come and discuss their job and its issues. I'm wondering how successful was this effort? How was it received by the employees?

>>effie+kT1
I didn't interact with any of the people you're referring to, so I can't comment on that situation.

Thanks, it was a difficult decision and took me a while to come to, but I knew I couldn't continue working there in good conscience.