How The NSA Gets Inside K-12 Classrooms

[kpete]

Last edited Tue Jul 2, 2013, 10:44 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Talking Points Memo

Along with running a massive surveillance apparatus, the secretive National Security Agency operates a program dedicated to getting its agents inside America’s elementary, middle, and high school classrooms. These K-12 NSA operatives guide children through math exercises, “cyber ethics,” and even mock spy games.

The NSA’s classroom initiatives are part of the Mathematics Education Partnership Program, which is described by the agency as an “outreach program to promote mathematics and science education at non-profit educational institutions.” MEPP began in the early 1990s due to concern among some at the NSA about the future of math and science education. It was apparently controversial within the agency since engaging with schoolchildren was antithetical to the intense secrecy that generally surrounds the NSA’s activities.

Along with a “Cryptokids” website featuring cartoonish recruitment materials, the NSA promotes several classroom initiatives as part of MEPP including “summer institutes” for teachers who work with children in second through fifth grades and a program that involves NSA volunteers mentoring students and repairing school equipment. The agency also offers a series of “interactive talks” NSA staffers can deliver to students from kindergarten through high school. Most of the NSA’s MEPP programming is only available to schools in the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. area, which is near the NSA’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. A spokesperson for the NSA declined to comment on this story.

The NSA published a catalog of the “talks” offered through its “speakers bureau.” For elementary school students, the NSA has counting games, a “cryptanlaysis 101” workshop that teaches basic code-breaking, a career day presentation, and geometry exercises. Since the NSA also provides volunteer judges to school science fairs through MEPP, there is also a talk offering a “judge’s perspective” to prospective fair participants. Along with the other offerings, the NSA has a program for grades five and up called “Mission Possible” that is a spy game complete with a mysterious briefcase

Read more: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/07/nsa-inside-classrooms.php?ref=fpa

[L0oniX]

1. Your tax dollars at work folks! Creepy n/t

[bigworld]

2. I'm not sure this is as sinister as TPM is making it out to be

Every other federal agency has similar speakers bureaus and outreach efforts with local schools. As long as they're not recruiting students or propagandizing, I can't say I have a much of a problem with it, provided that the school also has invited speakers from other government departments.

At 10 I would have loved it of course.

[freedom fighter jh]

18. Agree.

My ex set our then 15-year-old daughter up at an NSA-run math and science camp. There was nothing about it -- at least as far as I knew -- that was indoctrinating. It was kind of pitiful what they had to do because their budget was so low. For one thing, they had to get funding from a local grocery chain that had the same name as the camp. And they had to apologize for the food, saying don't worry about the crappy quality, because it's only two weeks that your kid is going to be eating it.

My daughter made some friends there wanted to go back the next year, but the program was gone.

[Maedhros]

19. But why is the NSA involved in education?

Can't we just give money to schools to run math and science programs? Why do we need to involve the NSA?

[bobclark86]

21. Because Republicans don't allow it...

Duh. But if we give the money to the NSA, we can make them feel all big in their pants, while actually teaching our children useful math and science skills.

I think the whole thing sounds like fun. Nobody said the instruction was "You WILL submit. Submit. SUBMIT!"

Yeah, sure, I do get a funny feeling about the NSA getting involved, but then again, we allow military recruiters into our schools and they have NOTHING to offer but lies to our children. They don't even bother teaching anything, just rounding up sheep for the next Haliburton War.

[Maedhros]

24. Doing only what Republicans allow

is a recipe for disaster. I suggest fighting them instead.

[freedom fighter jh]

25. I think it's the way education pretty much runs in this country.

The states and localities run the show. Even in a program like Bush's No Child Left Behind, where states have to meet standards to get funding, the standards are pretty much set by the states.

The Feds have the White House Committee on Science, Technology, and Math Education (CoSTEM) http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/nstc/committees/costem , which is supposed to coordinate science, technology, and math education at the federal level. A lot of this is workforce training, i.e. education for members of the federal workforce. Much of the rest of it is informal training -- museums, federal agencies' websites, camps like the NSA camp that my daughter went to. There is some K-12 stuff there, but it's not the backbone of any curriculum -- that stuff is left to state and local governments.

That's not an answer to your question, but it's what I know of the system.

[Maedhros]

26. Our education system is messed up, for certain. [n/t]

[cprise]

22. The fact of NSA's participation and getting kids to relate to them

means it is propaganda (or "public relations" which means the same thing).

Propaganda, to a certain extent, may be a fact of life, but we damn well better be choosy about the people and ideas that we are asked to aspire. In this case, mercenaries who are tasked with crapping all over international law and human rights make for very poor role models.

[zeemike]

3. Sorry but I can't help but think of 1984

"Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children."

[FirstLight]

13. ding!

my son says he recognizes this program and has had them in his school doing 'math games' I will be checking the school district website for info...but I bet it isn't there...

good thing my kid isn't a snitch...

[think]

4. K&R. First I've ever heard of Mathematics Education Partnership Program

Not sure what to think yet but it is a bit disconcerting to say the least....

[DeSwiss]

5. We've seen this movie before......

- Operation Paperclip, Part Deux.....

K&R

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Nazi_Education.htm

[dickthegrouch]

6. Any spyware part of that computer "repair"?

Might as well start tracking the little fiends when they're young, get them used to it.

[HardTimes99]

14. I think they would be more interested in tracking teachers for any signs

of subversive thought so as to nip in the bud any possible corruption of youth with subersive ideologies.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. This doesn't seem any different to me than military recruiters having access to schools.

Same morally hazardous material, but otherwise just a recruitment program.

[L0oniX]

10. Military recruiters in schools is creepy.

Anyone who joins the military helps drive grandma into the streets.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. That's what I meant by morally hazardous.

You could be ordered, as a soldier, to erroneously bomb some poor fucker's hut for no reason, or as a cryptanalyst, could end up building the case to erroneously bomb that poor fucker's hut in the first place.

And kids have not, in many cases, developed the critical thinking skills to discover where that chain of events leads to, when you swear in, and become property of the US Government.

[fasttense]

8. Insidious little spies aren't they? n/t

[Jerry442]

9. You know, there is some information that elementary school kids are not ready to process.

Kids at that age tend to categorize everyone as "good guys" and "bad guys" and have a really hard time grasping the idea that the "good guys" need careful watching, to make sure that their concept of good guy behavior doesn't turn bad. Hey, Superman doesn't need an oversight committee.

Picture this: a divorce lawyer appears before a group of 9-year-old kids to explain what divorce lawyers do, putting it in the best possible light, of course. I don't think divorce lawyers are all evil people, but it's hard to imagine anything positive coming out of such a presentation.

[christx30]

16. Even Superman needs an oversight committee.

It's called "Batman has an Kryptonite bullet, just in case." That's been the case for the last 20+ years.

NSA needs something like that too.

[Jerry442]

17. Yeah, that sounds like Bruce, alright.

[christx30]

23. To use the Superman analogy,

We need to have a Batman out there working with Superman protecting the country, but be ready to shut him the heck down if he goes rogue.
Superman here being the NSA, and Batman being FISA. Instead we have Krypto, the super lapdog in FISA's place. Have they ever said no to NSA? We don't know, because it's secret.

[Android3.14]

12. Haven't seen this in 8 years of math and science teaching

I was teaching secondary math and science as recently as 2010, and I've never run across this. I wonder how many schools actually had this happen.

[WillyT]

15. K & R !!!

[diabeticman]

20. George Orwell warned about this in 1984