The bastard who spearheaded the massive National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance apparatus has unveiled plans to retire:
Army General Keith Alexander’s eight-year tenure was rocked this year by revelations contained in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the agency’s widespread scooping up of telephone, e-mail and social media data.
Alexander has formalized plans to leave by next March or April, while his civilian deputy, John “Chris” Inglis, is due to retire by year’s end, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
I’m sure a lot of credit for this retirement goes to Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald. If it wasn’t for all the bad publicity provided by those two Mr. Alexander would likely continue is reign of spying. But this news is bittersweet. Being a higher up in the military, Mr. Alexander has probably received numerous job offers from politically connected defense contractors. Those offers likely include an absurdly high salary with very few job responsibility. Lockheed Martin, for example, would almost certainly love to hire Mr. Alexander to wine and dine his former military buddies to convince them to go with Lockheed’s solutions instead of Raytheon’s.
In other words, Mr. Alexander spend years illegally spying on us and his reward will almost certainly be a high paying career as a salesman for a defense contractor. That doesn’t seem like a very just outcome but it is a typical outcome when corruption within the state is unveiled.