NSA’s Brand Problem

NSA

Good Will Hunting
written by Matt Damon & Ben Affleck

Will:Why shouldn’t I work for the N.S.A.?

That’s a tough one, but I’ll take a shot. Say I’m working at the N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I’m real happy with myself, ’cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people that I never met and that I never had no problem with get killed.

Now the politicians are sayin’, “Send in the marines to secure the area” ’cause they don’t give a shit. It won’t be their kid over there, gettin’ shot. Just like it wasn’t them when their number was called, ’cause they were pullin’ a tour in the National Guard.

It’ll be some kid from Southie takin’ shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, ’cause he’ll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.

Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain’t helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They’re takin’ their sweet time bringin’ the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin’ play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain’t too long ’til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy’s out of work and he can’t afford to drive, so he’s walking to the fuckin’ job interviews, which sucks ’cause the schrapnel in his ass is givin’ him chronic hemorroids.

And meanwhile he’s starvin’ ’cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they’re servin’ is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I’m holdin’ out for somethin’ better. I figure, fuck it, while I’m at it, why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

4 Replies to “NSA’s Brand Problem”

  1. One of the most profound scenes about the implications of intelligence gathering. Gone are the days of the public celebrating the power and might of the US Government. Wake up NSA, this is the Jon Stewart generation that blame the politicians for getting us into wars that not one wants to fight. When the trail to the smoking gun is handed to the White House via unauthorized NSA wire taps/Echelon activities one has to wonder if the signals intelligence is actually backed up with hard facts and on the ground human intelligence.

  2. GWBushsuks said:

    As fact always proves stranger than fiction, I can only ponder what the real answer for this question would truthfully bring.

  3. One has to wonder how/why will NSA and the signals intelligence community have to be held accountable. I say yes. NSA seems infinitely more menacing than human intelligence gathering like the CIA.

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