... the cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.

> I am an American patriot.

> Patriotism to me simply means that I care about the US and its future.

> We all know that it's illegal to look at a US citizen's data without a court order. I use the term "look" deliberately: the Agency makes the distinction that looking at data is surveillance, while gathering it from locations outside the US is not. We gathered everything, and only looked at a tiny percentage of it. I am okay with this distinction both because I don't mind if my emails are copied to an Agency database

That very last bit, is that also a symptom of "patriotism", or more like a justification to tell himself "this was my job, I believe I do right, so my job was right, because it was my job, which is right".

(then again, his ad for "paleo mayo" does show that this person has a habit of buying into beliefs as long as they are backed by sufficiently authorative-sounding sources)

> NSA employees are the law-abiding type. Firstly, the lawbreaking type isn't likely to want to work for the government. Secondly, if they did apply, it is quite unlikely they would make it through the clearance process.

Yeah, actually, "law-abiding" is not really the word I'd describe for the sort of people this process attracts ... More something in between "gullible" and some of the less positive interpretations of "US Patriot".

> While the efficacy of polygraphs has been questioned, and while I'm sure given sufficient training and natural psychosomatic control one could beat them, I think they're fairly accurate. They may yield some false positives (I, for example, initially failed when I said, "No" in response to, "Have you ever given classified information to a foreign entity?" – this is before I knew any classified information – and had to fly back to DC for a second attempt a month later), but I believe false negatives are rare.

Aahahaha, yes, and so do horoscopes! Can you believe this guy?!

They could have had a psychic in a sufficiently impressive suit "evaluate" him, and he'd still have bought into it.

> Even if you are not a citizen of the Five Eyes, you shouldn't be worried about your data being viewed unless you're involved with a group of interest, such as a foreign government or violent organization.

Whut? So anyone involved with a foreign government, such as their politicians, should be worried.

By extension, all citizens relying on that government should be worried.

Doesn't make sense. But then, I can decide what not to worry about by myself.

Finally,

> it would seriously impair our ability to spy if we couldn't gather everything.*

> * I am not permitted to say why this is the case, but it is true.

Fine. But the problem is not so much having to take his word for it, it could very well be true. The problem is, your current situation is wrong, very wrong. It obviously needs overhaul, and without talking about the "why", you can't have a discussion about fixing it, either. He himself admits he is unaware of the "big picture"--all the while stating that whatever it is, he's probably okay with the implications.

I'm pretty sure that even if I did know all the things he knows but isn't telling us, I'd very much disagree with that notion.

> The NSA is our best hope in this war. In my mind, the Agency’s continued dominance of the Internet is absolutely worth [whatever]

Remember, patriotism doesn't mean he doesn't care about people outside the US, just as long as the NSA gets to dominate the entire Internet.