ASK ZELDA.......The NSA Has An Advice Columnist. Seriously

[Ichingcarpenter]

What if the National Security Agency had its own advice columnist? What would the eavesdroppers ask about?

You don’t need to guess. An NSA official, writing under the pen name “Zelda,” has actually served at the agency as a Dear Abby for spies. Her “Ask Zelda!” columns, distributed on the agency’s intranet and accessible only to those with the proper security clearance, are among the documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The columns are often amusing – topics include co-workers falling asleep on the job, sodas being stolen from shared fridges, supervisors not responding to emails, and office-mates who smell bad. But one of the most intriguing involves a letter from an NSA staffer who complains that his (or her) boss is spying on employees.

In the letter, which Zelda published in a column on September 9, 2011, the employee calls himself “Silenced in SID” – referring to the Signals Intelligence Directorate, the heart of the NSA’s surveillance operations. Zelda’s column, headlined “Watching Every Word in Snitch City,” offers an ironic insight into a spy agency where the spies apparently resent being spied upon.

“Dear Zelda,” the letter of complaint begins:
.............


https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/07/nsa-advice-columnist-seriously/





I see some huge psychological problems going on after reading the letters and answers.....ITS NOT SATIRE.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. Ironically, Snowden was spying on the spies that were spying on the spies.

[Thinkingabout]

2. Amazing, sounds like any office, wonder if we could get second hand advice from Zelda.

I never saw any of my co-workers drape a shield around themselves while working at a terminal, might be interesting to hear Zelda's advice for seeing something like this happening.

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. So you work for the CIA then

and consider everyone a snitch like the people at the NSA?

You can't even say what you did on the weekend without repercussions.

I really doubt your..'any office' scenario.

[Thinkingabout]

6. Do you have experience working in an office which has more than two employees?

[Ichingcarpenter]

7. yes.....many times in my life

Dear Zelda,

Here I am, cooped up in a chilly attic, alone, wearing clammy headphones and listening to the theater couple in apartment 3G. I’ve been doing this every night for two weeks now, nothing but a thermos of bad coffee with me, while my subjects are living a wonderful life, having parties, making love, playing the piano. I sit here, envious, bored, getting back pains from this chair. Sometimes I cry, listening to these others. What can I do?
Sincerely,
Winston Smith
- – -
Dear Winston,
Why, this is shocking. You’d think we were the Stasi or something. You should inform your controller about Operation Constant Nightlight, which s/he obviously hasn’t been briefed on. The operatives on live surveillance are in comfy cubicles at Ft. Meade, plenty of hot coffee and donuts, a yoga room right down the hall, and they’re more productive: each one can eavesdrop on 20 such couples.

Time for your controller to join the 21st Century. A good man like yourself deserves better working conditions.
Zelda

[Thinkingabout]

12. Don't doubt my "any office" scenario, the same thing happens, coke stolen from the

Fridge, co-workers working sleeping and some who feel they do all the work. We may not have had Zelda but would have been interesting.

[reformist2]

4. What a joke. I wish congress had the guts to pull the plug on the whole operation.

[Zorra]

5. LoL! ZELDA?!? That washed up old fraud?

You have problem, you come see me. You DU, I make you special deal.

[struggle4progress]

8. Still more evidence Snowden just mechanically mass-downloaded documents to dump

[woo me with science]

9. You seriously can't make this stuff up. It is TOO Orwellian.

If you'd written a dystopian novel, nobody would have believed this level of sickness...

Not The Onion. Honest. NSA director modeled war room after Star Trek's Enterprise
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023664169

[idendoit]

10. Zelda? The legend continues....

[Blue_Tires]

11. All the things he could be writing about the agency

he chooses a half-serious/half-humor internal agency advice column?

Just wait until he finds out about that match-fixing scandal at the intramural ultimate Frisbee tournament...

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Oh my, someone page George Orwell, or the rest of the classics

[WillyT]

14. LOL !!! - Rich With Irony !!!