But...<p>NSA, GCHQ, BSI&#x2F;BND, etc. aren&#x27;t the &quot;bad guy&quot; <i>in theory.</i><p>It&#x27;s within a nation&#x27;s interest to, within the extent of law and respect for human rights, try as thoroughly has it can to know what&#x27;s going on in the world. Electronic intelligence is part of that, and a growing part.<p>In practice, the permissive reactions many&#x2F;most&#x2F;all governments have to allegations (or proof) that a comms intel agency has broken the law, that&#x27;s what the trouble is. That these groups have been allowed to break the law or ghostwrite laws that allow them to violate what would generally not be approved by a citizenry, that needs to be addressed.<p>I&#x27;m not sure how ruining the careers of software developers and computer scientists who&#x27;ve worked for these organizations does anything other than remove from circulation some brilliant members of our community.<p>Ostracize the middle managers, bureaucrats, politicians that allow the trampling of our rights.<p>But don&#x27;t arrest the guy designing the home theater system for El Chapo&#x27;s vacation house and tell me you&#x27;ve taken down the Mexican drug cartel.