guardian news | On Tuesday, the National Security Agency called at the University of Wisconsin on a recruitment drive.
Attending the session was Madiha R Tahir,
a journalist studying a language course at the university. She asked
the squirming recruiters a few uncomfortable questions about the
activities of NSA: which countries the agency considers to be
"adversaries", and if being a good liar is a qualification for getting a
job at the NSA.
She has posted a recording of the session on Soundcloud, which you can hear above, and posted a rough transcript on her blog, The Mob and the Multitude. Here are some highlights.
The session begins ...
Tahir: "Do you consider Germany and the countries that the NSA has been spying upon to be adversaries, or are you, right now, not speaking the truth?"
Recruiter 1: "You can define adversary as 'enemy'
and, clearly, Germany is not our enemy. But would we have foreign
national interests from an intelligence perspective on what's going on
across the globe? Yeah, we do."
Tahir: "So by 'adversaries', you actually mean
anybody and everybody. There is nobody, then, by your definition that is
not an adversary. Is that correct?"
Recruiter 1: "That is not correct."
Recruiter 2: "… for us, our business is apolitical,
OK? We do not generate the intelligence requirements. They are levied on
us ... We might use the word 'target'."
Tahir: "I'm just surprised that for language
analysts, you're incredibly imprecise with your language. And it just
doesn't seem to be clear."
Later ...
Tahir: "... this is a recruiting session and you are telling us things that aren't true. And we also know that the NSA took down brochures and factsheets after the Snowden revelations
because those factsheets also had severe inaccuracies and untruths in
them, right? So how are we supposed to believe what you're saying?" Fist tap Dale.
