In a free and open society, there is a generally unspoken understanding between the citizens and the intelligence forces: We the people understand that they’re going to necessarily conduct themselves in a nefarious fashion from time to time, bending or breaking some laws along the way. We know this: That’s what spies do, being a necessary evil that is no less evil for being so acutely necessary. The spooks’ end of the bargain is: being good at what they do, not comporting themselves like a bunch of jackasses, and getting really bendy with the situational ethics only when doing so advances some legitimate national-security interest. Operation Mincemeat we can live with; Operation Stalk My Girlfriend we cannot. Little hypocrisies are the lubricant of a free society. In the case of our spy agencies, we don’t want to be paying too close attention to what they’re up to, because, if we did, we’d probably feel the need to intervene more than we do. So it’s in everybody’s best interest — cynical though it may be — that they do not give us too much reason to give them the hairy eyeball.
And here is the second source of concern in the documents: NSA agents are not only naughty — they’re sloppy. Records were sent to people without clearance to receive them, surveillance was conducted improperly inside the United States, data was stored in unsecured computers, records that were supposed to be destroyed slipped through the cracks, etc. For spy agencies, holding up their end of the unspoken bargain means not getting their secrets hijacked by a nobody such as PFC Bradley Manning or a contractor such as Edward Snowden. It means not forgetting to destroy files and not leaving them on computers that are vulnerable to intrusion. It means doing the job we entrust them to do.
And for you suspicious husbands and wives on the national-security payroll, it means doing your mate-stalking on Google like an ordinary schmo.
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