I had seen the article and listened to the audio previously, Brad.

Political scientists should derive two profound points from the colloquy between Tahir and the two NSA recruiters.

The first point arises from the recruiters' use of the word "customers" to describe those who receive the NSA-collected data --- something Tahir describes as an odd word for a government agency to use.

Perhaps not as odd as one might think, given the privatized nature of NSA surveillance and the prospect that it is being carried out both by and on behalf of major corporations.

The second point arises from the NSA recruiter's effort to suggest that the agency's Orwellian level of surveillance is justified because it is "apolitical"; that it is not simply directed at "adversaries" but at "targets."

That statement calls to mind what Hannah Arendt described as the "banality of evil" "“ a concept she arrived at after watching the 1963 war crimes trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her thesis was that "the great evils in history"¦were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal."

In Eichmann, Arendt saw not a vicious monster but a technocrat whose concern was focused on the efficiency of the apparatus used by the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust rather than with the madness of genocide.

While the evil embodied in the NSA's virtual elimination of the right to privacy, both domestically and abroad, is by no means as horrible as that which resulted in mass genocide during the Holocaust, the principle is the same. In these recruiters, one can see two bureaucrats who have internally accepted the validity of mass NSA surveillance.

Having accepted its validity, the recruiters pay no attention to the fact that such massive surveillance could prove the harbinger of a totalitarian state. In their bureaucratic minds, the surveillance is "apolitical." Their reduction of the victims of surveillance to "targets" entails the use of a seemingly neutral concept that, in reality, dehumanizes those whose privacy has been invaded.

Like Eichmann, their statement that they "do not generate the intelligence requirements [which are] levied upon [them]," entails that of a form of "I was only following orders" --- as if they can evade their own personal responsibility for carrying out the illegal schemes of others.

It is here that we see the fundamental distinction between the high moral conscience displayed by Edward Snowden in exposing the illegal scheme and those who try to create a psychic distance between themselves and the illegal policies they continue to carry out.

Oh God, that tape is glorious!!!

Those students are brilliant. And all there doing is using the simple facts of the matter and an ability to think on their feet to leave absolutely no wiggle room for a disingenuous presentation of an illegal and unconstitutional program.

This is exactly what the citizens of this nation should learn to do to the hordes of disingenuous lying politicians and media figures across the country, with perhaps a special focus on Washington.

Adding to Ernie's comment--

The recruiters state that the government has an interest in what they are being asked to surveil. This is another unspoken, unacknowledged frame loaded with hidden value.

As Howard Zinn pointed out--the powers that be, whether corporate, military, governmental, or media have "interests" and values not necessarily representative or in synch with those of we, the people.

Public polling shows that WE are very much in favor of getting the money out of politics, serious action on climate change, a single payer health system etc., etc.

But to the realpoliticians and the fawning/complicit media that cover them these sorts of goals/desires are inconceivable.

They will from time to time pay lip service to our values and wishes(Obama is particularly adept at this). But when it comes do what they actual set out to do and support, their interests are very different from ours.

All military recruiters, including the military NSA recruiters here, report to the Pentagon because NSA is a military outfit.

Military recruiters lie about as often as they drink water.

Their mission, which gets into their genetic structure, is to indoctrinate and make it appear as if it is enlightenment.

Ultimately they plan to fully replace in incompetent civilian government.

Yes, Dredd, and the Pentagon reports to the military-industrial complex.

With the revolving door in place between the generals and the weapons industry, what we see is the realization of the privatized, corporate security state. The military, in general, and the NSA in particular, are simply components of that state.

The true masters of war are the civilian heads of the weapons manufacturers who are the top point one percent.

I especially loved the part when the recruiter protests that he doesn't believe Alexander lied to congress and the student totally broke him off with the Guardian being censored by DoD. PWNED!

Going back to what Ernie was talking about with the incestuous relationship between private and government intel agencies, it reminds me of the Stratfor scandal when this private intel firm had its servers hacked by Anonymous and internal emails publicly dumped. One of the interesting nuggets that perfectly illustrates the problem is when Coke hired Stratfor to investigate PETA and one of the firm's private analysts who had come from the CIA mentions in an email that he would see about getting the CIA file on PETA.

The implication of these private intel firms having access to government intel *should* be terrifying to everyone.