Charles Seife worked for the NSA for a short time. The letter we quote, translated, was published by Slate.com

Mathematicians, why are you not speaking out?

Most people don't know the history of Von Neumann Hall.
Von Neumann Hall was the former site of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a research mathematics organization that worked for an agency that, at the time, no one dared to say its name. The close ties between Princeton and the NSA go back many decades, and I discovered it when I learned that some of my professors were members of a secret fraternity that worked on really hard math problems for national security reasons. I was proud to be able to join this fraternity that was much larger than I had ever imagined. According to NSA expert James Bamford, the agency is the largest employer of mathematicians on the planet.

I worked for the NSA in 1992 and 1993, under the auspices of the Director's Summer Program, which "steals" the hottest young undergraduate mathematicians from around the country every year. After a security check-in was established that included not only polygraph exams, but also at least two FBI agents spying around campus to see my activities.

It was 20 years ago that I received my first briefing on the agency, and much of what I learned is now outdated. Back then, few had heard that its nickname was “No Such Agency,” or to get the pun, “No Such Agency,” and the government wanted to keep it that way. It taught us not to say a word about the NSA. If anyone asked, the answer was, we work for the Department of Defense. In 1992, I was taught that the code was sealed and the files were classified. So it was a closely guarded secret. I also learned that it was a crime to reveal them to anyone. But a quick Google search shows that all government websites are filled with papers with words and phrases that were once only for a few eyes and only those who needed to know them.

Another thing they used to say in briefings about the agency was that the power of the NSA could never be used against American citizens. When I signed on, the agency made it very clear to us that they had the authority to protect our nation, only against foreign enemies, not domestic ones. Anyone who had worked there with me for two summers, I think, would have been horrified to know that our work would be used to spy on fellow Americans. Has that changed?

The mathematicians and cryptanalysts I met came from all over the country and had very different backgrounds, but they all joined the agency for the same reasons. First, we all knew that math was sexy. This may sound strange to a non-mathematician, but certain math problems exude a special sense of importance, of gravity, along with a sense that the solution is not too far beyond the mathematician's control. When I signed on, I knew that the NSA does interesting math, but I had no idea what it was. Within a week at the NSA, I was presented with an amazing buffet of the most tantalizing math problems I had ever seen.

The second reason we were there was an idealistic vision that we were doing something to help our country.
We all understood that human beings could die because of a seemingly minor breach of the secrets entrusted to us. We could also realize that gathering intelligence sometimes required using underhanded tactics in an effort to protect the nation. But we all knew that such tactics were limited by the law, even if the law was not always black and white. The agency insisted, over and over again, that the weapons we were building could never be turned against our own people, only against our enemies.

What will we do now that we have to deal with the fact that the Organization broke its word?

We know that every Verizon customer in the United States who had phone records turned over to the agency, which supposedly has no jurisdiction over calls originating and originating within the United States. On Wednesday, more evidence emerged that the agency collected tens of thousands of “domestic-only” emails. We know that the agency has extensive capabilities to spy on U.S. citizens, and it’s wrong. If the agency’s tools are truly only used against the enemy, it seems that ordinary U.S. citizens are being counted among the enemy.

None of the research I did for the NSA turned out to be particularly significant. I'm pretty sure my work is gathering dust in some government warehouse. I only worked for the agency for a very short time, and that was a long time ago. However, I feel compelled to speak up and say that I'm horrified. If this is truly what the agency stands for, I'm sorry for any contribution I've made to them.

I can only imagine the horror of the NSA people, those I knew, my former colleagues, my friends, my professors, and my mentors. Unlike me, they have spent most of their working lives helping the NSA build its power, only to see years later their work used in a way it should never have been used. They could speak out about the way their agreement, their privacy, and their honor were violated. It is hard to believe that the professors I know from universities across the country would remain silent about the abuses of the NSA usurping their work.

Will they talk?