Employees at the National Security Agency aren’t happy that we now know to look out for their trash-talking elves that they’ve created in World of Warcraft. The Washington Post reports that officials at the NSA are feeling depressed and demoralized by the constant stream of revelations being leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden and are also feeling hung out to dry by a White House that has spent most of its time trying to contain political damage caused by the Snowden leaks. Essentially, the Post’s sources say that the NSA thinks that it’s providing some of the most valuable intelligence in the United States’ battle against terrorism and that it deserves recognition for its efforts instead of calls for more restraint.
Of course, the NSA’s activities wouldn’t be getting so much scrutiny if they only were upsetting to civil liberties advocates. The reason the NSA’s data collection practices have raised such a firestorm is because they’ve angered key American allies and have hurt major American tech companies who are losing business among foreign governments and companies that are wary of their ties to the U.S. government. So while the ACLU and the EFF might not get the White House and Congress’s attention, lobbying from Microsoft, Google and Apple certainly will.
