Sometimes the story writes itself

08 Feb Sometimes the story writes itself

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/feb/3/nsa-wooing-thousands-laid-big-tech-workers-spy-age/

Apparently my reading of No Place to Hide all these years later was more prescient than even I could have guessed.

“The National Security Agency is doggedly courting laid-off Big Tech workers as the spy agency undertakes one of its largest hiring surges in the last 30 years.

The NSA began privately reaching out to tech employees over LinkedIn last fall, as word spread that major U.S. companies such as Meta and Amazon were bleeding tens of thousands of skilled workers.

NSA talent management senior strategist Christine Parker said the spy agency also saw predictions of more job cuts and sprung into action.” -Washington Times, Ibid. (emphasis mine)

Let’s revisit Roosevelt’s speech for a moment:

“‘Yes,’ boasted Roosevelt in his Charleston speech in 1935, ‘we are on our way back, not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever because we are planning it that way, and don’t let anybody tell you differently.'” –https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-in-politics-nothing-happens-by-accident-fdr.336/

Would you be surprised to learn there are people inside the Beltway who read my blogs and tune in to my podcast on a regular basis? It shouldn’t be a shock.

As I’ve said many times before: the fat cats and power brokers know what’s coming. The news doesn’t hit their ears in a surprising way.

“‘NSA started reaching out through LinkedIn, through some of our career boards, specifically sending messages to people that we thought might be linked to some companies that either were in the news saying they are going to lay off or were predicted to be laid off,’ Ms. Parker said in an interview. ‘Just kind of let them know that we’re here and that we have this robust, ongoing hiring program.’

With the NSA using the social platform LinkedIn in tandem with job boards such as Glassdoor and Indeed, plus tech message boards like Stack Overflow, nearly 30,000 people clicked on the agency‘s overtures and about 2,000 people applied, Ms. Parker said. . . .

The NSA also is looking to change its image from having a buttoned-up culture known for the smirking moniker ‘No Such Agency’ to a much more permissive environment.

NSA Cybersecurity Director Rob Joyce has deployed the slogan of ‘you do you’ in Twitter posts encouraging people to apply for work. He noted that previous marijuana use is no longer prohibitive for employment, but ongoing drug use would be unacceptable.” -Washington Times, Ibid.

A kindler, gentler program. You do you. It’s OK if you smoked a doobie once or twice. We’re cool with it. This reminds me so much of Russell Brand’s video, “This Is A F*cking JOKE” where he lambastes the GWB Masterclass. In the blurb, he writes, “As Masterclass launches President George W. Bush’s class on ‘tough calls and life lessons’, we ask, what are these life lessons, and what is the campaign to normalise war criminals really all about?” He also pokes fun at the idea of GWB being reinvented as good old Uncle Democracy. But hey – you do you!

“When one Twitter user noted that Mr. Joyce was replying to an anonymous user with a pink teddy bear in January, Mr. Joyce took the chance to deploy his it-takes-all-kinds mantra.

‘NSA is actually a place that embraces diversity,’ Mr. Joyce said on Twitter. ‘I’m definitely down with pink teddy bears.'” -Washington Times, Ibid.

Meanwhile I’m thinking of a passage from No Place to Hide:

“‘The stuff I saw really began to disturb me,’ Snowden said. ‘I could watch drones in real time as they surveilled the people they might kill. You could watch entire villages and see what everyone was doing. I watched NSA tracking people’s Internet activities as they typed. I became aware of just how invasive US surveillance capabilities had become.'” -Greenwald quoting Edward Snowden

But hey – pink teddy bears! You do you with a stuffed toy as you watch drones surveilling targets. 😣 I assume of course that very thing occurred as I composed the draft of this blog post, i.e., it was logged long before your eyes ever saw it.

“Ms. Moore said the NSA’s attention to Big Tech workers was not intended to prevent them from finding employment elsewhere, including with foreign governments. She also noted that the NSA has a demand for Russian and Chinese language analysts.” -Washington Times, Ibid.

О, да. Конечно. Они хотят всё это. One imagines it might feel rather difficult to turn down an offer from the NSA if it’s extended. I’ll settle for controlled opposition if it comes down to it.