There’s a problem with electing know-nothings and rank amateurs to office and that is that they simply do not know where the lines are drawn. And we’re not talking about moral lines or boundaries of good taste. Those considerations don’t exist per se in the Trump administration. No, we are talking about simple practicalities of what one can and cannot do with respect to the sweeping changes that Elon Musk and Project 2025 intend to make in government and how these literal changes will affect many other things that the American government emphatically does not want to badly affect — such as “mission-related websites,” that have nothing to do with diversity, equity or inclusion. But they’re getting trashed anyhow.
Today, the National Security Agency (NSA) is planning a “Big Delete” of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including “privilege,” “bias,” and “inclusion.” The “Big Delete,” according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences. Although the websites and other content are purportedly being deleted to comply with President Trump’s executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, or “DEI,” the dragnet is taking down “mission-related” work. According to the NSA source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, the process is “very chaotic,” but is plowing ahead anyway.
A memo distributed by NSA leadership to its staff says that on February 10, all NSA websites and internal network pages that contain banned words will be deleted. This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:
Anti-Racism
Racism
Allyship
Bias
DEI
Diversity
Diverse
Confirmation Bias
Equity
Equitableness
Feminism
Gender
Gender Identity
Inclusion
Inclusive
All-Inclusive
Inclusivity
Injustice
Intersectionality
Prejudice
Privilege
Racial Identity
Sexuality
Stereotypes
Pronouns
Transgender
EqualityThe memo acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term “privilege” is used by the NSA in the context of “privilege escalation.” In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to “techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.”
You can see clearly here how this is set up to get out of control and very quickly. The basic goal might be to end DEI but the effect which is achieved could be to cripple government programs that are essential to the national well being and that have nothing whatsoever to do with diversity, equity, or inclusion.
The NSA is trying to identify mission-related sites before the “Big Delete” is executed but appears to lack the personnel to do so. The NSA’s internal network has existed since the 1990s, and a manual review of the content is impractical. Instead, the NSA is working with “Data Science Development Program interns” to “understand the false-positive use cases” and “help generate query options that can better minimize false-positives.” Nevertheless, the NSA is anticipating “unintended downtime” of “mission-related” websites.
Unintended downtime. And what might suffer unintended downtime? Or perhaps we should ask on a more practical level, what sites WON’T suffer unintended downtime? The words which are being banned are very common English words and have a great many applications.
One example included a job listing page for the Department of Homeland Security that removed language about maintaining an “inclusive environment.” The Post also found examples of words being removed that had nothing to do with DEI, such as a page on the Department of the Interior’s website that boasted of its museums’ “diverse collections,” removing the word “diverse.”
In this context, “diverse” may mean that the museum has everything from a Van Gogh to a Warhol available for viewing; or a first folio of Shakespeare’s along with handwritten notes made by Hemingway — but that’s not what is being targeted. What’s being targeted is some social commentary or bias, which in this example simply does not exist.
We have a bunch of rank amateurs, Musk’s peach-fuzz tech bros, who have no experience in government working for Musk, who is an unelected official. And they are messing with data bases that have nothing to do with wasteful government spending or with social concerns like DEI.
This has gone way beyond an audit. This is now at the level of a governmental kamikazee mission. The only thing that is assured is destruction of websites that have nothing to do with Musk’s stated goals. This is called collatoral damage. There’s going to be a lot of it, as this incompetent wrecking ball that is Trump 2.0 moves through our government.
********
Friends, I am forced to self-promote and ask you for money. We had a bad year compared with 2023 and the end of the year has been catastrophic. Traffic died on November 5. We are a small blog and completely self-supporting by ad revenue, donations, and subscriptions. If you can afford a monthly subscription that would help us out. If you can make a small donation, likewise. Our only goal is to stay in business and give you the best content we can generate. You are the wind beneath our wings. Thank you. Ursula
