Why I Didn't Work for the NSA
Way back in 1968, I was an E-4 in the USAF, which had trained me as a Russian linguist to do some stuff I can't talk about. That I was a linguist/analyst is on my DD-214, so I can tell people that, though. After I returned from a 15 month tour in Turkey, I was posted to Ft. Meade, MD, where I took a cubical seat in the NSA building. I sat next to a guy who was doing the same thing I was supposed to be doing, but was a GS-15, while I was getting $256/month as a USAF E-4. I took some umbrage at that, and limited my contribution to what I considered being worth $256/month.
In the meantime, anti-war protests in DC were on-going, so I spent my off hours in Georgetown, helping plan them and participating in them. While at work in the NSA building, I poked around, listened, volunteered for interesting things, and learned a lot about what they were doing. It was interesting stuff, and I like interesting stuff.
As the time approached when my enlistment period in the USAF was coming to an end, I got a job offer from the NSA. I'd start as a GS-13 on the day after my discharge from the USAF, doing the same thing I was already supposed to be doing, but for a decent salary. I considered it. I turned it down. Although it was an interesting job, doing what it was that I was doing, there was other stuff that the organization was doing that I didn't care for much at all. The other stuff wasn't what I'd be doing if I took the job offer, but it was still happening. It didn't seem to me to be something I wanted to be connected with. It was one thing to be pretending to work there on assignment from the USAF. It was another to make it a career.
So, I said, "Thanks, but no." When my discharge from the USAF came, I got in my 1959 Volvo and headed back to California, and went in a completely different direction, or in several different directions.
What's going on now with data collection and mining is not a new thing. It's been going on for a very long time, and with many of the same difficult questions arising. The technology has improved enormously, allowing increasing data collection and mining, to the point that government agencies can now collect and mine just about every communication being made. But, the principle remains the same, and the questions are the same questions that were being asked way back in the late 1960s. The answers are all still as equivocal as they were, and I still strongly disapprove of some of what those agencies do.
When I left the USAF and Ft. Meade, I signed an awful lot of papers, agreeing to an awful lot of things. Mostly, I agreed that I couldn't talk about anything regarding any details of anything I knew or had learned. I also agreed to inform someone of all international travel for a period of five years, supplying a complete itinerary at least three months in advance. I decided to simply not travel outside the US for that period. There are still places I am not allowed to go at all. I still can't discuss the nature of what I was doing there, or any details about the NSA that I might have learned while there. The data collection stuff is public knowledge. The details are not.
It's been 44 year since I drove away from Ft. Meade. It is not a decision I have ever had any second thoughts about. It was not a place I wanted to work. I was there, and then I was not. Life went on for me, and many thousands of people continued to work there. I simply wasn't willing to be one of them.
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You kept your wits about you and that was way smart.
Thanks for posting.
My Russian is pretty shaky, now, 44 years later. Halting, even. I still have a Zippo lighter with this on it:
I was in the IT department at Bankers Trust, which was bought out by Deutschebank many years ago. I worked on the 38th floor of 130 Liberty Street - the big black building that the south tower of the World Trade Center damaged when it came down. Did 8 years there, then moved out to Seattle and did 17 years as a government contractor at NOAA, as a network manager. All courtesy of the training and job experience I got in the Air Force.
MM, I had a somewhat similar experience. I worked with or for the NSA in the early 70's and again in the early 80's. I was Army Signal Corp officer and worked unattended sensors and covert communications relays on a certain trail in SEA. In the 80's I was back (as you know, once you are in that business it kinda sticks to you) working certain overhead ELINT collection. I was in the basement of the black building for awhile. Can't say exactly when or what I was doing. I'll bet I know where you were and what you were doing in Northern Turkey. I almost got sent there also, but managed to escape the clutches of that community before actually deploying. I went off on a slightly different career track, and only occasionally got pulled back into that world. I retired after a forty year career in 2010, and like you, still have restrictions on some travel and activities.
Anyway, I told you all that just for background to concur with you that this data collection that everyone is all upset about has been going on since the '40's. Whether it was authorized by statute or not, it has always been going on. If the agency wants something they will get it. If it is too politically hot to do it with our assets, then we get a convenient ally to do it for us. The new technology has made it more efficient and able to record and store much more data, but the NSA has been able to record pretty much any conversation it has wanted for many decades, with or without a court order. It just seems that they want a LOT more nowadays.
And Hi to my old buds at No Such Agency that are reading this.
Sometime I'll post my draft experience. Suffice to say it ended in a room with one military rep, a piece of paper and a bus ticket home.
During the VietNam war years there was a psych in Boston commonly referred to as "Dr. Feel Good". Adamantly anti-war. Routinely provided some kind of dx, for a price, that helped one get a 4F deferment. Others in my family had gone that route.
As I approached high school graduation I made cursory explorations of my options. Cursory being the key word. My lottery number was borderline. I waffled on the hope I wouldn't be called. After graduation I got my draft notice. Faced with the blunt reality of the notice I decided to see the doc.
He had been busted by DOD, license to practice revoked and out of business. So I got on the bus one early AM with a lot of other kids from my area. Went to Boston Navy Yard for the induction process.
Along the way "I've got gum on my shoe" popped up in my thoughts. It was a phrase we used to step out of a conversation, situation, etc. Meaningless yet it paused everything at times and allowed for an exit. I blindly chose that as a "plan".
Throughout the whole process from the initial paperwork to standing in my skivvies in the med line I only had one response, written or verbal. "I've got gum on my shoe". Eventually I was pulled aside and interviewed. Told to wait, I sat until I was directed to another room - the guy with the piece of paper and the bus ticket. All he said was "Go home".
Got an official 4F notice in the mail shortly after.
Not sure what role "gum in my shoe" played. Was born with neurofibromatosis, which at that time was called von Recklinghausen's Syndrome and poorly understood, even in medical circles. That may have been the actual determining factor. I don't know.
(aside) I've thought in hindsight I could have chosen the USAF. Both my uncles served in WWII. Yet, I was what 19? I made the choice I made at the time.
1. Were you aware of any "spying on Americans" going on at NSA around the time you were there?
2. What was your general impression of the people you knew who worked there, military or civilian? Aggressive authoritarian types? Militarists? Rabid anti-communists? Right-wingers? Regular folks just making a living? Do you think the people you knew there would have objected to or protested "spying on Americans" or just gone along with it for fear of losing their jobs?
(I realize it was >40 years ago and you probably haven't given it much thought in the interim.) 
