Dr. Joseph Bonneau Wins NSA Award, Responds By Ripping NSA In Blog Post

Dr. Joseph Bonneau, an engineer for Google, was announced the winner of the National Security Agency's first annual "Science of Security Competition" on July 19. The same day, Bonneau shared his "conflicted feelings" over receiving the award and chastised NSA surveillance.

"Like many in the community of cryptographers and security engineers, I’m sad that we haven’t better informed the public about the inherent dangers and questionable utility of mass surveillance," Bonneau wrote in a blog post. "And like many American citizens I’m ashamed we’ve let our politicians sneak the country down this path."

A June HuffPost/YouGov poll found Americans have widely differing perceptions of what kinds of surveillance are included in NSA programs. In July, a Pew Research Center poll revealed many Americans believe the government is collecting far more private communications data than it has acknowledged.

Click here to read Bonneau's full blog post on the award.

(h/t Alternet)