She was probably right about the systems she used. I clearly remember be stunned, and initially not believing, that any one person, even a sysadmin, would have such broad access to systems at the NSA. It goes against everything that intelligence agencies have learned about compartmentalization of information and "need to know" access controls.
"Need to know" apparently is no longer in fashion in either the civil or military intelligence communities, in any way whatsoever. Bradley Manning convinced me of that. As a low-level private, he was able to download megabytes of sensitive material completely unrelated to his job, and that he couldn't possibly have had any need to access. Regardless of whether you think he (she) did the right thing, it's just insane that it was even possible. It speaks of outrageous incompetence at the highest levels of the organization, incompetence that's likely to be a greater security threat than anything else under discussion.
Same story with Snowden, a low-level contractor who was apparently able to walk away with the whole store. Love him or hate him, he's not the Agency's real problem.
Much much more amusing to see how random college drop outs can so deeply compromise national security. Imagine what trouble we'd be in if a motivated nation state tried to get the USA's secrets?
She's probably right in thinking that policies and procedures exist for these things. She's woefully naive if she thinks the systems used to insure those policies and procedures are followed are up to the task, or that the executives and project managers who sign off on them give a shit whether they actually work or not (they don't--they get paid either way, and keep the gravy train rolling).
My experience with DoD contractors is that they are the worst sort of government contractors. They'll do anything to get extensions, add-ons, and other lucrative contracts while providing the absolute bare minimum necessary to meet the strict letter of existing ones.
As long as our government contracting system is run as a font of graft and corporate welfare, all the policies, procedures, and regulations in the world aren't going to stop the Snowdens and Private Mannings of the industry from having access to things they may not need to have access to.
Well they seem to have put enough pieces together to run a training exercise with the same details as 9/11 on the same day, as well as warn the President of the attack a month earlier.
My guess is that compartmentalization was given as an excuse in order for the government to expand power during a time of 'crisis'. Today they lie to you about what the NSA does, 10 years ago it was lying to you about what caused 9/11, including lying about the memo, and the training exercise.
Remember that before the memo and the training exercise were public knowledge that 'no one could have predicted 9/11'.
