So ... we appease them by eliminating our freedoms?

Because the unemployable get more and more and there's little you can do against it save putting them in some sort of government busywork job.

I mean, seriously, what's the requirement for becoming a DHS goon? Being able to walk on two legs without dragging your knuckles too much on the floor, as far as I can tell.

Well, that, or if that fails... what was that thermonuclear option again? It sounds like it could solve things. Or dissolve, at least.

It's actually a little bit worse than that. We could all be spoon-fed "facts" saying the DHS is terrible, and we could all agree it should be dismantled. And then the DHS will politely go about its way while the rest of us do nothing. While we very much enjoy judgmentally shaking our heads at the terrible things that go on in this world, very few people are willing to do anything about it.

By that definition the US founding fathers would be terrorists, I get it?

Not judging, just trying to keep up with the lingo du jour.

They are not failing.

Failing would imply they're trying.

To "pull a Snowden" someone would first of all have to have some guts, conscience and a deep love for the values the United States of America once stood for.

Where in the DHS would you find someone like that?

Pretty much.

Got a conscience? Second guessing your motivations? Questioning your actions? Sorry, you're no material for us.

I dread our future ad-riddled overlords.

I think it kinda takes a sociopath to willingly work for the NSA these days...

The "worth" of a polygraph lies in the subject's belief in its ability to judge his truthfulness. Basically it's a psychological tool. It's ability to discover lies relies on the subject's belief in the operator's "professional" ability and his faith in machines making no mistakes.

One has to wonder whether that trick ever worked on someone in IT...

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party of the United States..."

Whoopsie, wrong questionnaire.

That is also a very good point. Licensing fees are often per-processor or per-machine. If I buy 20 old servers and want to buy Windows Server licensing to go with it, I have to buy a separate version of Windows Standard for each. If I buy a single new, extremely powerful server, I might be able to set up 20 virtual servers, and only have to buy 1 copy of Windows Datacenter. And that's just talking about the OS.

Then you've been working for the wrong people.

The aforementioned situation actually came up a few months ago with a board meeting. And yes, the board member did want my security person fired.

Asking whether I should write that he wants him to be fired for following security protocol (one should maybe know that security is paramount in our company) while said board member in turn wanted him to bypass security and allow him in unidentified closed the case pretty quickly.