How Does the CIA Keep Its IT Staff Honest?

Posted by timothy on Saturday December 17, 2011 @07:34AM from the vogonic-control dept.

Tootech points out this story for anyone who's been curious about getting that top-secret clearance and the promise of a cushy pension from the CIA, as a reward for decades of blood-curdling, heart-pounding, knuckle-whitening IT service: "Be prepared to go through a lot of scrutiny if you want to work in the Central Intelligence Agency's IT department, says chief information officer Al Tarasiuk. And it doesn't stop after you get your top secret clearance. 'Once you're in, there are frequent reinvestigations, but it's just part of process here,' says Tarasiuk, who also gets polygraphed regularly, though he won't be more specific. For those senior IT managers who are the 'privileged users,' meaning system administrators, 'there is certainly more scrutiny on you,' Tarasiuk says. 'It's interesting: there's so much scrutiny that a normal person might not want to put up with that. But it's part of the mission.'"

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Explains their drug problem. by rbrander · 2011-12-17 08:09 · Score: 0, Flamebait

With all the scrutiny, polygraphs, no doubt surveillance, nobody there would dare do drugs.
Therefore, they aren't the type to come up with original ideas, therefore the place runs on old ideas forever, therefore it becomes a stultified bureaucracy.... ...therefore, they can take in $40B a year and STILL miss 9/11, still get WMDs wrong, and all the earlier stuff in Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashes" about never being able to successfully plant moles at any number at any depth into China, North Korea, or Russia.
THEREFORE we need to legalize drugs immediately...to save the CIA. This is to protect America, people!