Although I'm not American and disapprove many NSA privacy concerns, I can't blame their technical employees: they are choosing a stable high-paying job.
Articles like this try to put an ethical burden on analysts while ignoring the real actors and influences behind an ethical issue. Analysts are just doing their job and one certainly can't blame them.
A lot of people hold personal opinions that aren't obligated to follow what courts decide. Not to invoke Chewbacca's law, but do you think OJ was innocent?
Yes, it was ruled invalid. That doesn't make it invalid. That ruling was pure evil. The trials were a sham, existing only so that a democracy could participate in dishing out victor's justice. It's revenge, pure and simple, coldly ignoring the pressure that people were under.
This is also why I think Snowden did the right thing: he may have "betrayed his country" by helping inform the public about what is going on, but it was his moral responsibility to do so. If he had kept his mouth shut, he would have become an accomplice to the crime.
I've already been in a situation where I could choose between serious jail time and refusing orders I did not agree with so I'm pretty sure which side I would come down on.
So, with all respect mr. Anonymous Coward you haven't a clue what you're talking about.
Principles come at a price, that's for sure.
I can see why you have a problem with this worldview.
Unless refusing orders would mean somebody else jails you, no you haven't been in that situation. The deal is that you follow orders and maybe get jailed/executed after losing a war, or you disobey orders and definitely get jailed/executed right away.
In addition to Hans Fritzsche, Franz von Papen, and Hjalmar Schacht in Nuremberg, over 1,000 Japanese defendants were acquitted of war crimes in postwar trials.
Sure, Göring was sentenced to death by hanging, but he conspired to steal Jewish property after Kristallnacht and there was clear evidence he was complicit in the attempted extermination of the Hungarian Jews. So, yeah, didn't go well for him.
Contrast that though with the higher ranking Dönitz, effectively head of state. His defense actually worked fairly well, and he received a lighter sentence.
On charges that he sunk neutral vessels, his defense countered that the US had done the same, so he received no additional jail time.
On charges that he waged unrestricted warfare against British merchants, he received a "not guilty" as his defense argued that the merchants had all supported the war effort.
He claimed that he didn't know anything about the policy in the camps, since he was only involved with naval matters. He was the final head of a genocidal state, and received just a 10 year sentence, lighter than some murderers get.
EDIT: I think you're right that there are mitigating factors when people are acting under orders (especially given the behavior in question falls well short of genocide), but I don't think the Nuremberg trials were a sham trial.
People working for dubious 3-letter agencies aren't absolved from responsibility or reflection; they are not supposed to be soulless drones. I disagree with you: I think we really can appeal to their moral sense to get up and say that what they're being asked to do goes against their ethics. Of course six-figure jobs and sweet maths problems are strong incentives to listen less closely to one's moral compass. Cognitive dissonance must be strong at the NSA offices.
It may go against your ethics, but that's a problem you will have to resolve within yourself. Even if you think it's unethical, you don't have the right to prevent other people from marrying same-sex partners or eating beef. The same goes for working for oil companies, weapons manufacturers, or the NSA.
That's not a rebuttal. Tempting as it may be, I will not go for the straw man argument about meat/weapons/LGBT issues.
Obviously I'll have to come to terms with the fact that "people in the world" have different priorities to mine regarding ethics; that doesn't change the fact that I believe certain things to be wrong and that (independently) I believe people should be held accountable for actions, even if just following orders (which was the original argument I was responding to).
Working for the NSA isn't a human rights issue, another reason that the gay marriage thing is a straw man. I'm not claiming someone shouldn't have the right to work for them, I'm just saying if they're instructed to do "wrong things" that those things are still "wrong" even if you're only doing them for your boss. (for whatever values of "wrong" -- hence your point about ethics being individual)
If you just don't like it, then whatever. There are no consequences. The problem arises when you try to outlaw things other people are doing because you personally believe they are wrong. If I'm RMS and I believe proprietary software is wrong, sure. I can be my crazy self and advocate free software. Shutting down Microsoft for paying employees to do "wrong things" that are perfectly legal is where the line is crossed, and that's essentially what people are saying about the NSA.
The judges are the historians, and they tend to have the last word.
You've conveniently created a nice sliding scale from those that marry their same-sex partners all the way to those employed by the NSA and if the present (international) trends are any indication you may very well be right in the way you ordered those, maybe the last two should be swapped, time will tell.
I'm sure people of the future will find all kinds of ethical flaws in the way we live today. After all, 500 years ago, slavery was normal and accepted.
Personally, I'd bet that our mistreatment of computer programs and robots will be considered so obscene that nothing else we do will even register.
Articles like this try to put an ethical burden on analysts while ignoring the real actors and influences behind an ethical issue. Analysts are just doing their job and one certainly can't blame them.