14 DAY TRIAL // The NSA is running damage control, but it’s not exactly doing it in the right manner. The agency has reportedly sent out a letter to employees and affiliates, including contractors, to reassure them the NSA is not as bad as the media paints it to be.
The letter was sent a week ago and was signed by the NSA director and deputy director, The Dissenter reports.
“Some media outlets have sensationalized the leaks to the press in a way that has called into question our motives and wrongly cast doubt on the integrity and commitment of the extraordinary people who work here at NSA/CSS—your loved one(s),” the letter reads.
“It has been discouraging to see how our Agency frequently has been portrayed in the news as more of a rogue element than a national treasure.”
Of course, since the agency is such a “national treasure,” its actions, namely spying on foreigners and US citizens as well, should perhaps not ever be questioned. Or at least that’s what the entire document suggests, urging the recipients to stick with them through this whole ordeal.
“Some of those reports have been leaked to the press and have been mischaracterized to portray us as irresponsible and careless; nothing could be further from the truth,” another line reads.
It’s worth mentioning here the fact that the NSA director said the agency “accidentally” collected domestic data on some 16,000 individuals because they didn’t understand a decision taken by the FISA court.
Finally, the letter states that more stories are going to appear in the media, which isn’t that hard to assess considering Glenn Greenwald admitted to having several thousand documents in his possession.
However, the NSA makes a promise to work on separating fact from fiction, although nothing the agency has done so far can qualify as such.