Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio](soundcloud.com) |
Students Question the NSA at Recruiting Session [audio](soundcloud.com) |
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."
Rather than instantly pass the buck about the scope, context and impact of their domestic surveillance work, perhaps the recruiters on this clip should re-read this oath and think about what it really means; what their responsibilities are to the citizens of the United States; and what kind of country they want their children and their children's children to live in.
See Sec. 7 here: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=00...
The fact that this accommodates atheists, however, is a bit of a coincidence: such opt-out clauses were initially included because Quakers objected to swearing oaths to God.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/11-surprising-things-you-didn...
"This was a fun read and it seams like many people could
just DDoS the recruiting efforts of the NSA and CIA by
showing up to recruiting sessions and playing devil's
advocates. If you are well informed and good at internet
arguing, you are well equipped to attend these recruiting
sessions.
At the very least it would plant the seeds of cognitive
dissonance in the minds of everyone recruiting for the NSA
and CIA. e.g. "Why do so many of the citizens we are
trying to protect not agree with our decision to do a job
where we trade liberty for security?"
Quite the contrary. The conclusion of your suggestion is the CIA and the NSA actually doing the job they need to do rather than making more enemies to a country that has already amassed an impressive amount of them.
But on the other hand they continue to stay at the organization so while I do feel some sympathy for their predicament,I guess it's really just up to each person to figure out whether they're really okay with staying there, given all the pros and cons involved.
edit: Cached version http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
Always speak under the assumption that the other person is 'good'. That means not calling them a liar. Instead, ask the questions that you feel would expose the inconsistency. That way they show everyone the point you're trying to make. Also it prevents personal animosity from obscuring the real content you might discover.
Furthermore, it allows a 3rd party who hears the discourse more freedom to make up their mind, whereas they might naturally go against your point of view because it's being pushed down their throat.
1. I think that if this kind of questioning become the norm, we'd have a significant impact on their ability to recruit.
2. Maybe some startup founders in the area could go poach the talent :p
See also "You don't need to worry if you don't have anything to hide" etc.
On the contrary, it might improve. The Snowden sympathisers won't waste their time applying and the Snowden opponents will rush to the NSA's assistance.
> Very few smart people are going to want to join an organization that spies on their fellow citizens.
Smart people may realize that we're on the edge of an abyss with little way out, and that abyss involves complete control over everybody's lives -- this appeals to some people. What you can control cannot hurt you, and I think that feeling resonates with everybody that has a sense of self-preservation.
You are correct on the "little" front. While it may seem astronomical to people in countries with different educational systems and people without career prospects, the median and mean student loan debt is under $30k.
So long as they are in a field with more than one major employer, then the NSA is hardly has significant power over them.
You'll get nothing more than spin at best.
Now, if the NSA are spying for US global corporations, the intelligence gathered is to benefit the US corporations and negatively effect the corporations being spied on. This means people affiliated with those corporations/organisations targeted by the spying will be negatively affected by the hacking/spying.
Of course, nobody will prosecute NSA affiliated hackers (or those in charge) that destroy or affect the livelihoods of people they have targeted.
Also, we want ethical people working for them, because then there's more people to say "Is this legal?" when an order for intelligence comes in.
I don't buy the classic "change the organization from within" line. If that were the proper thing to encourage then we should all be running out looking for the most despicable corporations to work for and the most horrendous governments to pay taxes to.
"I mean, I think the question here is, do you actually think about the ramifications of the work that you do, which is deeply problematic, or do you just dress up in costumes and get drunk?"
Thank you!
Why shouldn't I work for the NSA? That's a tough one. But I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at the NSA, and somebody puts a code on my desk, something no one else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cuz I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East, and once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels are hiding. Fifteen hundred people that I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are saying, "Oh, send in the marines to secure the area", 'cuz they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, getting shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cuz they were pulling a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie over there taking shrapnel in the ass. He comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cuz he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so that we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the little skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. They're taking their sweet time bringing the oil back, of course, maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, it ain't too long till he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work. He can't afford to drive, so he's walking to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks because the shrapnel in his ass is giving him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starving 'cuz every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're serving is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holding out for something better. I figure: fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected President.
I hope NSA switches up their recruitment a little bit, make it easier for technically qualified people who aren't exactly choir boys to get a job there. I'd love to work for them.
Surveillance isn't going away, and I bet the technology side of it is fascinating, full of interesting problems.
I really do hope this girl is proud of herself! She should be. For all we know, she might be an excellent candidate for an NSA job and have a real interest in working for them, provided that in doing so she doesn't have to sacrifice her integrity as an American. Given what we currently know from the press, her questions seem to be entirely reasonable. And if they aren't, that's not her fault, because she can only ask questions based on what she believes to be true. In short, don't shoot the messenger.
> "technically qualified people who aren't exactly choir boys"
I'm curious, are you referring dismissively to people with a steadfast commitment to their own ethical compass? And if so, why?
Edit: I think Gorpus is dead now. I misinterpreted his comment about choir boys though, he was just saying they only hire people with completely spotless records, drug testing, etc.
Student loan discussion is dominated by the few fools who wrack up massively debt then think that they can make the minimum required payment for 10 years and have everything turn out okay. The mean debt is also slewed upwards by people who acquire very large amounts of debt that is not an unusual amount for their field (doctors, particularly).
Those who don't actually graduate are another obvious cause of the perception that student loan debt is crippling (and for them it certainly is), but of course they are not being considered in this discussion unless the NSA is making a habit of hiring college dropouts.
I agree the "change the organisation from within" line is weak.
But I also think that there are many people who still think "You only need to worry if you have something to hide" and who don't see a problem with what NSA does. I guess those people will believe the NSA obeys the law.
I could understand people thinking the GCHQ box is "just a cache". Collecting the data isn't a problem; looking through the data for targeted information (grepping the specific name of a terrorist, for example) is ok; it's only a problem if they start to look at everything. And those people won't think that collection is the same as looking. It's not something I believe myself, but I can see how others might.
Also, as has been mentioned, cognitive dissonance. People rationalise and justify weird things all the time. I don't see that being different when they're looking for work.
I'm not saying that not a single person has decided to not work for NSA! Obviously, there's probably many people who would have been fine with spying on foreign nations but very uncomfortable with the idea of spying on citizens.
I think as engineers, we have a certain degree of responsibility for how our work is used. To say your work is apolitical when you're in the business of spying on people is quite the statement, especially if "people" is basically everybody. (I am aware that the speaker is probably not an engineer and it wasn't an engineering recruiting program, but the same can be said about their field, I'd assume.)
A good example are prosecutors and defense attorneys.
I've met many prosecutors who believe it's okay to put away people for many years even if they personally have doubts about their guilt.
I've met many defense attorneys who believe it's okay to get people acquitted, when they've confessed their guilt to the attorney.
This isn't because they are amoral people at their core, it's because they have a job, and want to be able to sleep at night while still doing that job, so they convince themselves.
Oddly it doesn't seem to come up often with recruiters from companies that I would think have considerably more questionable practices. When oil companies and defense contractors recruit in engineering departments, they typically don't get much flack. Maybe computer scientists have more of a idealist mindset.
Or more options. By the time a petroleum engineer student becomes a grad student they have probably either figured out that they will most likely be working for one of those companies, or they will have left the field for a more agreeable one. If they've got a problem with BP, chances are they have a problem with Exxon as well...
On the other hand, Computer Science students have a wider variety of companies they can work for. Disagreeing with one or two in particular is unlikely to push them into another field.
We do have evidence that they conduct massive surveillance could be unconstitutional.
We do not have evidence that they are abusing this, and more importantly we don't know whether they have been able to save lives.
It could be that the people who work there know about positive life-saving results from the work they do and that's why they continue to do it.
(Edit: downvotes are fine, but it would be nice to also see a single link to evidence that the intelligence itself is being misused as opposed to protecting people)
But what if that makes the problem worse rather than better, by removing from the agency those people most able to sense and push-back against secret abuses?
But there is value in making NSA employees feel bad about what their organization is doing and whether they are personally accountable for it. In fact, this seems like a spontaneous incident of "Haunting" officials from Gene Sharp's list of 198 methods of nonviolent action. I hope others learn from this example and make the jobs of all NSA recruiters difficult everywhere they go.
This incident reminded me of the scene from Good Will Hunting where Will explains why he might not want to work for the NSA after all[2]. Everyone who works for the NSA should be asking themselves that question every single day.
[1] http://mobandmultitude.com/2013/07/02/the-nsa-comes-recruiti...
Which is not to say that you should not call them out, just that you should do it respectfully and with compassion for a fellow human who might be in a very difficult position.
Given that throughout history every intelligence organization has been penetrated by those hostile to it, having a system like PRISM means that the hostile agencies would be able to do more damage to the USA that they would otherwise. A hypothetical case would be a hostile agency gaining information to blackmail a guard at a nuclear weapons storage facility, allowing the USA to be decimated from the inside with its own nuclear weapons stockpile.
Then allow them to contemplate it, be completely silent. There are really only two responses to this, either it starts to dawn on them that what they are doing could harm many innocent people or they will BS, not want to talk about "hypotheticals" and generally evade the possibility just laid out. The former means they are human, the second, probably a sociopath.
Introverted people focused on a specific subject, such as pure-math research, tend to go where society deems it beneficial for them to go. So you are good at math, but you need to eat. Where does society think it's useful for a mathematician to apply his or her skills? Well, our society gives the NSA substantial funding, which it devotes in part to hiring mathematicians. The rest of society does not fund pure-math research much at all.
And yet somehow society is surprised that many pure mathematicians end up working for the NSA. Maybe if you cheap bastards were willing to pay for math research through a different mechanism, the mathematicians would work somewhere else.
If the common man weren't so chickenshit that they keep voting the same folks into office and refusing to hold their government accountable, maybe we wouldn't have to deal with the alphabet soup agencies making ready use of society's intellectually-talented castoffs.
I'm good at cunnilingus, and yet I need to eat, too! What to do, what do do...
Do you know the story by Thoreau in "Walden" about the basket weaving indian? Also, while I agree that something like math research is ultimately benefitting all, this doesn't really apply when it's done for spooks, since those tend to sit on it. So if math is all you're good at, and if you positively can't wait tables or learn anything else, so you can use your math skills for non-profit and the commons or teaching math on the side, then you might be screwed. And if you just go work for the NSA, you're not exactly beating a path out of that situation for future mathematicians either.
Same reason that, if you think gentrification is problematic, yelling "die yuppie scum!" at the poor schmucks trying to find a decent apartment in an overpriced area isn't either an effective or an intellectually sound strategy. Instead, one ought to look at the structural forces producing gentrification, i.e. the developers and capital movements.
An article on that subject: http://jacobinmag.com/2013/05/the-fucking-hipster-show/
Edit: The reason I say that phrase doesn't make any sense is because "God" has so many inconsistent, incoherent definitions that it seems nonsensical to request help from it. No idea what "God" even is.
There is the possibility that they trend towards Mormons due to some belief/statistic that they are more likely to respect authority, or unquestioningly follow orders.
On the other hand, Mormons do a lot of missionary work where they learn the local language, in addition to customs, etc. This is also something extremely valuable to intelligence organizations.
no religion is for the soul. it's all about control.
but try to say So help me [allah|budah|spagetti] to see what happens.
Yes, Christians are in the majority in the military, but they are also required by regulation and therefore law to treat everyone with respect. There are Muslims, Jews, Scientologists, Wiccans, Satanists, Atheists, Mormons, Mennonites, Taoists, Bhuddists, Harri Krishnas, Jedis, and many more in the United States military. I've even had a friend who claimed to observe traditional Norse beliefs.
Every official event that I've been to has had some sort of Christian benediction, which is technically unethical, but at the same time, if it brings comfort to the overwhelming majority of my friends who may soon be risking their lives in combat, isn't it more damaging to attempt to deprive them of it?
Unless of course you actually did mention the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
because this would be an obvious attempt to demean another person's
religious beliefs.
Not that it matters, I just wanted to state the contrary.
"Contrarywise, said Tweedledee"
Nothing absolves you of your fundamental responsibility to behave ethically to the best of your abilities. There's a good article on this topic here:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-architecture-...
There's no such thing as a job where you will never have to make an ethics based decision and you need to be prepared to do the right thing. Philip Zimbardo (sp?)(Stanford prison experiment) talks about the necessity of training people to be heroes before they face ethical conundrums to short circuit our natural instincts and take action. I think this is an important thing to do from time to time - ask yourself if you are compromising your ethics in some way. Look in the mirror and remind yourself that you're going to do the right thing especially when its hard. Make the decision ahead of time so its easier to follow through when it counts.
Here's hoping there are folks at the NSA and elsewhere asking themselves these kind of questions and rereading that oath to protect the constitution.
I'm really disappointed with the actions and arguments.
I don't want to live in a surveillance state, but nobody is even discussing realistic actions. It's all just expressions of disgust and anti-us sentiment.
edit:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/05/24/what-not-specifically-t...
In other words, it sounds like some in the Administration suspect that someone within the targeting chain of command may have invented the Ibrahim al-Banna presence as a way to get at Awlaki’s son.
If this doesn't make you throw up, what will?
Or is this a reason to bring down the entire US?
For someone in the third world who may have little to lose and becomes witness to such senseless slaughter? Maybe.
But then again I'm not quite sure what you're even asking, maybe elaborate. Do you think maybe cutting down on the nazi stuff a liiiittle bit would endanger the US in any meaningful way?
It's not at all obvious that all the NSA staff should just walk away from their jobs. If the NSA is actually protecting people, that would be just as irresponsible.
Let's ignore the edge cases of being committing violations of unjust laws, malum prohibitum crimes, and stick with something like: Client accused of murdering 40 year old woman Client admits to you he murdered 40 year old woman because he felt like it. No police brutality, confession issues, whatever [1].
I'm of course, not saying they should be strung up. But trying to get them off on a technicality serves nothing. If they go free, it serves no overall goal of the system.
[1] Note that for things like the exclusionary rules, this is actually why a number of 'conservative' justices don't like them - they are actually in agreement that stopping police from committing constitutional violations is a worthy goal, but do not believe letting guilty people go free is the way to solve that problem.
If a defendant wants to skip the trial and admit guilt, that's a different matter.
I'll buy that argument for people doing menial customer service work. I don't buy it for people with jobs like these - these sorts of people have all kinds of options available to them. At the very least they probably have TS clearances which is going to open a ton of other doors (maybe just as tainted, but maybe not).
Convenience over principles is what got us here.
If the armchair-ethicist standard is: "if you have any qualms, you'll quit" – then the type of people doing recruiting, and being recruited, and staying in the agency, all become even more self-selected for total devotion to total surveillance than may already exist. Whatever oversight or shame might remain as an internal check would decay. Whatever hints/leaks we get would dry up even further.
That isn't necessarily any better of a result for us. It doesn't necessarily bring reform/correction any sooner.
I'd like to think the no-fly-zoning of Bolivia's president is an example of that sort of thinking exposing itself for public embarrassment/criticism. Here's hoping they keep digging their own hole deeper and deeper.
You seem to be assuming that every person joining the NSA makes it worse, and that's not clear to me. In particular, a small, cohesive, monocultural institution will be more likely to commit abuses and more able to keep them secret.
Though I do think being amoral is a position on the moral spectrum - wether amoral people want to see it or not - and to me it kinda implies immorality. I find amorality much more dangerous than mere immorality, also because it can often seem benign and go unnoticed much longer.
I doubt the NSA/FBI/DoD/etc are going away anytime soon, so a simplistic strategy of "try to deny them good people, force them to get worse so they eventually collapse" is unlikely to result in either marginal improvements in their behavior, or their wholesale replacement by better institutions. This 'talent boycott' could just mean more acrimony, abuse, and even violence without ultimate remedy.
Some diseases don't get worse before they get better. They get worse before they get fatal.
I'm just saying the simplistic "you must quit if you have qualms" standard shouldn't have an automatic presumption of either effectiveness or righteousness.
This is especially true about an old, powerful, and sovereignty-claiming institution like the USG and its security organs. They are beyond easy influence through either simple boycotts or idealistic infiltrations, and you can't easily ignore them or wait-them-out.
So a good guy joins the NSA and tries to effect change. What happens? They tell him "no". If he refuses to carry out his job, they replace him and get somebody else. If he shuts up and works within the system and eventually reaches a position of real power, then refuses to abuse... the people with power over the NSA as a whole replace him and get somebody else.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/197...
http://www.parsarts.com/2010/11/29/tehran-wikileaks-1979-cab...
http://wikileaks.org/cable/1979/08/79TEHRAN8980.html
No wonder even Cyrus Vance couldn't save the State Dept. from becoming a giant noodly appendage after Carter.
As general rule: if you could say it in defense of being a member of the Waffen-SS, it's probably not a very solid argument. Everybody has their sob story, but long after those people are dead others will STILL have to deal with the messy, fucked up and stupid structures cowards erected. And with that in mind, my sympathy kinda fades.
And that your friends would do it is no argument either, people always seem to have this idea that they themselves (or their friends) are special and ought to not be criticized. Everybody is so fucking magical when it's about them. Contrast this with how we talk and think about people of the past, of other countries or other social groups.
Also there are the people blown up by drones, or the ones threatened with it http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/will-nsa-whistleblower-edwa... (because who needs trials when you have "intelligence") Those don't even get to the point of worry about job security, and they don't seem to even figure into any of this.
When evaluating alternatives, it can be challenging to identify employers that have and will continue to maintain a flawless moral track record, not only for their own organization but also for the customers and vendors they support.
If asked to name such an organization on the fly, one might be hard pressed to pick one that would hold up to HN scrutiny.
Hell, I would even consider having "NSA xxxx - summer of 2013" on your resume to be an indicator that you are a person with backbone and a sense of morality. Bonus points right there.
I don't believe for one instant that these are people just desperately trying to feed their starving family. They have options, they choose to stay on.
Everybody dies. Few people live.
A fair trial is not a purpose, it's a means to an end (punishing people fairly). It is not even a necessary component. The only reason it exists at all is because of our inability to objectively determine guilt in most cases. The rest are tacked on (IE determinations of what crime has been committed. Even this would be solved if you could objectively determine what occurred)
However, again, if the defendant admits guilt (even if not in public), but still wants a trial, can you explain how the system is served by a fair trial on guilt or innocence for him, rather than a fair sentencing hearing?
In that case, the guilt or innocence is not in question. The same is true when they only admit guilt to a defense attorney. Defending the client, and trying to get them off during the trial stage, does not serve the ends of the system. It may, depending on how formulated, serve some of the means, but that's kind of irrelevant.
The system is best served by not being allowed to randomly put whomever in jail for whatever [1]. So we would require the prosecution present legally-obtained evidence that the defendant has committed a crime to establish that fact. Defence attorneys are to ensure that there is a fair fight because we cannot expect all of the accused to be legally savvy. To make this effective, the defence must be able to speak to them in confidence, ergo attorney-client privilege. So the defendant admits to his lawyer that he killed a woman. If the state is overreaching on charges, let's say murder one when he did it on a whim, he actually should not be convicted of it. Giving a good defence is supposed to ensure that when an accused is convicted they are convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. "Better one thousand guilty walk free..."
Also in that case the defence would likely advise the culprit to admit guilt to a second or third-degree murder.
[1] Although I don't think it's succeeding very well at this due to overreach by the states as far as charging too much to get a plea bargain.
They aren't randomly putting whomeever. They are putting a guy who admitted to a crime, and is in fact, guilty, in jail. And not even in jail. My only objection was to the trial, not a sentencing hearing. They are welcome to argue whatever factors/mitigations/excuses they want at that hearing.
You still haven't answered what the trial buys you there.
The rest is a discussion about why we have an adversarial system for the case where guilt is not objectively known. I don't at all disagree with that part (though i agree both sides are blameworthy for various things and in various ways).
IE "Giving a good defence is supposed to ensure that when an accused is convicted they are convicted beyond a reasonable doubt."
But he admitted he did it, and actually did it. You objectively know they did it. The "reasonable doubt" standard is a subjective standard, which is standing in for the lack of objective knowledge. Here, we have that objective knowledge. So what exactly is the subjective standard buying you in that case, and why does that serve the end goal, rather than the current means, of the system.
Notice that this is one approach, the traditional (dare I say right wing?) one. It's exemplified in the Saudi's punishment of cutting off thieves hands. OTOH, it's mostly rejected in Europe, where justice is supposed to rehabilitate, not punish. That's why there isn't death penalty, and why there are notoriously comfortable prisons; "justice as punishment" is seen there mostly as backwards and barbaric (probably because of all these socialists there :). has
I'm pretty sure that's not how drones work. They're not autonomous, self-aware predators that can smell a Muslim from a mile away, and make their own decisions about when and how and who to kill. I'm pretty sure there's always a pilot with a joystick watching a camera and pulling a trigger.
Not that that makes it any better, but unless you can provide some proof what you're describing seems like science fiction.
I'm pretty sure there's always a pilot with a joystick watching a camera and pulling a trigger.
Just like there is always a president near the top signing the order, in some shape or other. And: people collecting intelligence about whoever they are asked to collect intelligence about, because that's just the "requirements handed down to them". Which was the point I hid under my sarcasm.
I do believe that there should be consequences for a lot of these actions. I'd just rather people were discussing what we actually know and how things could realistically be improved (by individuals, corporations, and'the government) than just jeering like an angry mob.
I'm not sure what you mean by "real world statecraft", but when I hear that I have to think of Larkin's "This Be The Verse":
fools in old-style hats and coats, / Who half the time were soppy-stern / And half at one another's throats.
Feel free to respond to either, but spare me transparent excuses for not doing so and how that is somehow my fault.
Basically, what do you think the immune system in somebody with a bee allergy is actually doing when that person gets stung by a bee? It's only trying to help, of course. But that doesn't change the fact that 1) a bee sting can be ignored and 2) the massive allergic reaction threatens the person's life.
Also, don't underestimate terrorism. Over decades, the IRA did a lot to disrupt the UK, including killing cabinet ministers, and two nearly successful assassination attempts against the prime minister. Ultimately the UK conceded and the new Irish government contained ministers who had been leaders of the terrorist movement.
As far your IRA example, the US doesn't face anything like that, and shows no prospect of doing so. Even if it did, I'm not convinced that efforts like the NSA's would be very helpful in combating it, and given the example of the last 12 years, I'm quite sure that the US government's reactions as a whole would be far more damaging than the terrorism itself.
2. The "ethics" of the NSA can be changed by Congress at any time. Why direct your energy at relatively low-level employees when you (assuming you're a US citizen) have the power to effect change top-down?
3. Vice is not a reputable source. It's actually comical that you'd use them of all publications as a source considering that their claim to fame is conspiring with one of the most totalitarian regimes in history (NK) for press and pageviews.
P.S. a tip for PavlovsCat if you're still reading this thread, quote less. It's an implicit appeal to authority (a fallacy) and it makes you sound like you don't have your own ideas.
Thanks, I know it's meant well, but I disagree that it implies appeal to authority; simply ignore the author name and source and notice how the words stand on their own... anything else is a strawman, not any appeal I am actually making. I'm just a quote geek and like tipping my hat that way, when I remember someone having said what I'm getting at in a beautiful or precise fashion. How that seems doesn't really bother me too much: if someone is open to the point I'm making, they will hardly mind a quote; if they're not, even my nickname might be an excuse, or the time of day.
I just love quotes, I even collect the from perfectly "normal" people including HN. Like finding shells on the beach and going "look! someone said this! :D". I also collected quotes them mostly because they fit to what I was thinking (at the time), instead of, say, adapting what I'm thinking to random stuff random people said throughout history. Things aren't this or that way because Chomsky says so, but rather Chomsky is a genius for some of the things he says, and what ultimately matters are those things.
Having own ideas is nice, but noticing that your own ideas are similar with stuff that's been said a million times before, or is currently being said by others, is also nice. Many, if not most ideas aren't really new anyway, they get rediscovered and rephrased all the time.. what matters is if and how we implement them. I think Goethe said something about that :D
Wanna know my favourite quote?
"I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary." -- Mitch Hedberg
You can put that on my tombstone, to date I found no better summary of my experience on Earth.
So what's the scientific way? Maybe present evidence to an unaligned third decider that the crime happened and that the most likely explanation is that the accused committed the crime?
If so, I invite you to visit the court room more.
As for the first, you can objectively know if the person is guilty in a number of ways. For example, maybe they admit it, plus there is authenticated video + eyewitness + whatever you like evidence that they did it. It happens plenty of times.
If your answer is "nothing is enough to objectively know", then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Also, note that "reasonable doubt" is a very modern standard. It's not clear why you seem to be holding it up as the "only" or "right" standard.
Then that would be good enough to convince a jury the accused is guilty. You can't allow the defence to just claim "well, he did it", as you appear to desire, because that's ripe for abuse.