FISA passed, so I’m unemployed
I’ve been slow in writing this, but it’s something important to me.
Until recently I was working at a major telecommunications company as a systems engineer responsible for building servers and processes for large and complex projects. I took the job knowing that telecom companies had been in the hot seat regarding snooping, and that there was a possibility that I might be around some of the technology, projects, or people responsible. I rationalized my concerns by promising myself that if I ever found myself breaking the law or violating the Constitution at the request of the company I’d blow the whistle.
The job was fantastic, the people were all great, and with the lone exception of the building being short on space to house the many employees and contractors, everything was perfect. I was working with state-of-the-art technology, and was managed by a fellow who seemed content to let me be the best technical guy I could be.
One of the many projects to which I was assigned involved moving some old server hardware to a different location. As a first step I attempted to locate the original hardware, which was operational and responding to pings, but which I couldn’t physically locate in the data center. I asked a couple of colleagues for help and one of them began running on about the “other room.” We had to borrow a badge and go through several levels of coded door to get to it, but on the other end of the facility we found the alternate server room. It was smaller and had less gear, but was obviously separated from the primary applications. We couldn’t find the server I was looking for there either, so I began to ask if there were even more server rooms.
And there were. Several more, in fact. Each successive room could only be entered by navigating and passing the security of the previous room, and the rooms eventually became just a few huge machines and massive routers locked behind a chain-link fence in the corner of another room. I never actually made it into the the chain-linked area, and could only access the immediate rooms before it by having my manager accompany me to see an old, grisly-looking dude, who then had to stay with both of us beyond a certain point.
I started talking to my colleagues in hushed tones, asking them about these rooms and what purpose the served. The details were sketchy, and I never received a good answer because no one had a good answer to give. For a few weeks I struggled with the knowledge that secret rooms were buried in the building, wondering endlessly why the core engineering team did not even know their purpose.
Then, on July 10th, Bush signed FISA, complete with retroactive immunity for telecoms.
I can’t remember exactly how long I waited to submit my resignation, but it wasn’t more than a few days. I had not been asked to do anything illegal or unconstitutional, and still hadn’t even determined what the back rooms contained. I just knew that something was wrong, and that I could not be a part of whatever it was. I still gave a proper 2-week notice, and I still worked diligently on my project load, but for a while I secretly wondered if I was doing the right thing. Maybe those rooms just held core routers or time servers or something else critical. It was possible, even probable, that I was leaving a fantastic job over nothing.
With a few days to go I sat down with my manager, who had been pretty quiet during the run-up to my departure. He knew my reasons for leaving, and hadn’t commented to that point. We sat down in a little room and began to talk. I opened by quoting the 4th Amendment, and explained that with the passage of FISA and the concern over what telecom companies were being asked to do – and being retroactively immunized after having allegedly done – I was not a good fit for the position. Had I been asked to do something illegal or unconstitutonal, I explained, I wouldn’t have even been able to give them the two-week notice.
Then he said something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life, and which marked a turning point in my understanding of liberty and freedom.
“When the men in black suits come and ask you to do something, you know, there’s just not much you can do.”
Leaving that place was the single best decision of my professional life.
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