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DHS Turns To Unpaid Interns For Nation's Cyber Security
theodp writes "A week after President Obama stressed the importance of computer science to America, the Department of Homeland Security put out a call for 100+ of the nations' best-and-brightest college students to work for nothing on the nation's cyber security. The unpaid internship program, DHS notes, is the realization of recommendations (PDF) from the Homeland Security Advisory Council's Task Force on CyberSkills, which included execs from Facebook, Lockheed Martin, and Sony, and was advised by representatives from Cisco, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Northrop Grumman, the NSF, and the NSA. 'Do you desire to protect American interests and secure our Nation while building a meaningful and rewarding career?' reads the job posting for Secretary's Honors Program Cyber Student Volunteers (salary: $0.00-$0.00). 'If so, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is calling.' Student volunteers, DHS adds, will begin in spring 2014 and participate throughout the summer. Get your applications in by January 3, kids!"
Ooo! Outsiders worked so well before! Snow-den! Snow-den! What fun.
"..to work for nothing"
Boy. Can't imagine how they could say no to that.
$0 is a great price for being shunned by your peers for the rest of your life.
Sometimes I wonder if unpaid internships are just part of a sinister plot to keep the class divide as large as possible. In college I knew lots of really bright people who had to skip internships because they had to do things like work so they could pay for school and, well, eat.
I know that they are not intended that way, but it is one of the side issues with the 'internship' culture, they tend to be a step based off how much cash you have that can have major effects on your long term career options.
Thought that was exploitive and slave like to use unpaid interns.
From each according to his ability...
Didn't they just recently pass laws/regulations pretty much banning unpaid internship for most private businesses???
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well that's that problem solved. Everybody, that's lunch! Smoke if you got 'em.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division allows an employer not to pay a trainee if all of the following are true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship#United_States
I would have thought anyone working in this area would need security clearance - which can take quite a while to get. How is that effort going to make sense (or be done in time) for spring/summer 2014 temporary work?
I know that spending my time applying to do a bunch of menial work for the government for free is exactly what I was hoping to get to do this Christmas!
This position requires a Security Clearance of SECRET. SO, let me get this straight. Unpaid, FULL TIME, college age, best and brightest... with access to secret level items...
Nevermind. This is a great idea. What could possibly go wrong?
It ensures only the ideologically pure will come to work for them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...during the Clinton years, but before the Monica Lewinski scandal where government would place ads in newspapers and certain periodicals asking for interns. The ads mentioned something along the lines of "gain experience under the nation's leaders". After the Monica scandal, this bit of wording was changed.
"hey...wait...this looks like the Obamacare website..."
Not only you help spy on your family and friends, help to demolish remaining US freedoms, but also you get not paid for that! How you can refuse that great deal?
DHS is clustered heavily in DC and the areas immediately outside of DC within the beltway. The cost of moving to this area just to work could easily add $10k-$12k in debt or lost savings for just a single summer. This is simply not an internship that makes sense for any student who comes from a family lacking real wealth.
Now that is attractive, maybe we should have $0/Hr employee's set the next encryption standard, NSA would love that.
Put that experience on a resume and you're likely to see more rejections than you would expect normally. There was a time when "government job" meant something but now it means something else entirely to a growing number of people and businesses out there. Things are getting polarized. Working and living in the DC area showed me exactly how polarized they are even 3-4 years ago.
They don't get paid! It's the biggest safety mechanism that the government has left.
You want to offer a bunch of impressionable young people, most of whom are accumulating large amounts of debt, the opportunity to learn as much as they can about the computer security infrastructure of the country. While they do this, we're not paying them a cent or giving them any guarantees regarding future employment, further increasing their financial insecurity in the present and the future, as well as exploiting whatever sense of loyalty they might feel for their country for the purpose of reducing government labor costs.
What could possibly go wrong?
"Hi, I'm Jihad McMuhammed, I'm here to start data analysis as your newest intern."
"fine, why don't you take the Assistant Leader Personal Security desk over here, and coordinate our reactions to intelligence... you can text when you're not busy."
what could possibly be wrong about that?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
batwing crazies are fixated, too
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
It has been diluted into what was called "sensitive but unclassified".
In most cases, you have to have "secret" just to get past the guard house.
When I started, the order was "unclassified","classified", "secret", "top secret", with variations within those categories. Nowdays unclassified means unemployed :), classified means its an official document... But to get on base you have to have a "secret" or "top secret" clearance. For DHS, it means than secret is needed to get past the front door.
The other reason for the dilution is that whoever the person talks to will likely have a higher clearance... And even though they will be doing what used to be unclassified work, they need secret just because their office made/monitor will have secret talks that could be overheard. Not to mention seeing whats on a desk...
The 13th really has nothing to do with it. No one will need to be compelled to do this so it would be neither involuntary or slavery. It would be more like charity.
Oh, and as soon as the 13th does come into play, you need to involve the 5th too. Time and effort is still the most common private property held by the people and if it is seized for public use, just compensation is more than appropriate.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"...100+ of the nations' best-and-brightest college students.."
"..to work for nothing"
Boy. Can't imagine how they could say no to that.
They are college students. They get course credit for things like this, each quarter/semester is the equivalent of an elective class. That has a monetary value.
Plus a key to getting hired is to have something on your resume other than your degree and its assigned coursework/projects. So it has monetary value in that regard too. Its not terribly different than voluntarily contributing to a FOSS project, well other than HR departments probably consider DHS experience and references more valuable.
Thirdly, if you want to work for DHS this gets your foot in the door. In governmental bureaucracies like this knowing someone inside and/or having an insider reference is quite valuable. Works in corporations too. I think the newly announced General Motors CEO started at GM as an intern when she was in college.
That said, I am not against paid internships. I am merely pointing out that as a student even an unpaid internship can have a value.
Didn't America have a civil war over slavery?
Yes, twice.
Once in 2008 and again in 2012.
The slavers won both times.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
6 Legal Requirements For Unpaid Internship Programs
well hey, it will put people back to work right? I mean who cares if they arent getting paid as long as people are working!
You are not far off. When you go from a good manufacturing job to unemployment to flipping burgers you are a victory in the unemployment statistics, politicians will cheer their success at reducing unemployment.
Ooo! Outsiders worked so well before! Snow-den! Snow-den! What fun.
What makes you think these interns are sys admins? They are probably the folks playing world of warcraft and looking for sinister activities in chat.
Why in the hell would you have a limited time internship that requires a secret level clearance that will probably take the UNPAID intern months to get? Seems like a ton of hassle for very little reward.
Because it gets you that security clearance before graduation. When you and your peers begin applying for jobs after graduation you have an advantage, you already have security clearance.
"which included execs from Facebook, Lockheed Martin, and Sony, and was advised by representatives from Cisco, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Northrop Grumman, the NSF, and the NSA."
Aren't these chuckleheads a good representation of all that is evil and corrupt and driving Team USA into the ground?
Didn't they just recently pass laws/regulations pretty much banning unpaid internship for most private businesses???
Since when does government have to live by the rules it imposes on individuals and business? Exempting itself is a common practice.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division allows an employer not to pay a trainee if all of the following are true:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internship#United_States
The 'trainees' WILL replace 'regular employees' and the employer DOES receive an immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees. That was the whole point of this, wasn't it? NOT to train up the next gen of cyberwarriors, but to put them in place to DO SHIT.
The big tech companies write their job descriptions these days to where they 'can't' find Americans trained 'well enough' to fill them, thus, they NEED H1Bs to fill the slots that they 'can't find any American to fill'. H1Bs work cheaper, and besides, you have a stranglehold on them because they're not citizens. The only thing cheaper than an H1B for an employer is an UNPAID INTERN. We should be surprised that the government would take this advice from the big tech corps?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
You're telling me the largest single discretionaru expenditure point of the government, the DoD, can't fork out minimum wage for Info Sec interns? Jesus the least I got when interning in college was $12 an hour. The other positions paid me $19 or $20 WHILE I got course credit. I know guys that interned with some bigger companies pulling down almost twice that.
Good luck with this approach DHS. Not like there is any competition out there...
Didn't America have a civil war over slavery?
Yes, twice.
Once in 2008 and again in 2012.
The slavers won both times.
Strat
That's debatable. Just remember, under the Old Regime, man oppressed man. Under the New Regime, they reversed that...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I don't know how it works in the US. In the UK a security clearence is bound to your employer. Getting a new job involves transfering it.
Mind you getting a SC is easier if you have had one previously.
The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
Well that's pretty universal isn't it?
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
If I understanding it correctly, in the US, your clearance is deactivated when you leave but can easily be reactivated by another employer with a certain period of time. Otherwise, you have to start the whole original expensive and time-consuming process over.
When you go from a good manufacturing job to unemployment to flipping burgers you are a victory in the unemployment statistics, politicians will cheer their success at reducing unemployment.
That's better than "go from good manufacturing job to no job to running out of unemployment insurance to giving up looking" which also counts as a success at reducing unemployment numbers.
I hear Edward Snowden is looking for a job.
All the data and documents you can carry.
Have gnu, will travel.
but the enemy pays better...
If you want to know about security clearance in the US, you can check it at http://www.state.gov/m/ds/clearances/c10978.htm
For the cost of getting security clearance, you who is an employee would not be paying but your employer. I believe the cost is varied depended on case by case. http://news.clearancejobs.com/2011/08/07/how-much-does-it-really-cost-to-get-a-security-clearance/ gives some idea about how much but it is 2 years old...
Well there you have it. The USA government finds security so important they are willing to spend the grand sum of $0 on it. They could have some pretty good consultants if they'd pay $100/hour
The interns they really want, easily get a decent pay for their skills in a lot of computer companies. Anyone willing to work for $0 will have ulterior motives to do so. Either they are so unskilled that even operating a cash register at a fast food restaurant at minimum wages is too difficult for them, or someone else is paying them to go do the work.
If the government didn't want to be regulating prices and wages and income of their citizens, they would put out a bid and have the lowest qualifying bidders do the job. Now they are pushing the market by forcing the price to zero.
I don't know who came up with this plan, but they really must hate their country and it's citizens a lot.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Interesting enough, the content quoted from wikipedia is a little bit different from the actual document -- www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf Don't know why they have to change certain words in the content...
Just remember, under the Old Regime, man oppressed man. Under the New Regime, they reversed that...
Agreed, in that both mainstream US political parties are nearly identical when it comes to screwing over US citizens. It's only the precise manner of implementation and rates at which individual liberty is lost that are up for debate.
Time for a convention of States. http://conventionofstates.com/
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The best and the brightest are going to shiny big companies that will pay them well for their internships. We've all heard the stories about compensation of interns at Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.
Further, in the post-Snowden world, I doubt many idealistic young computer scientists want *anything* to do with the feds "cyber"-anything.
The DHS will get bottom-of-barrel "talent" -- if any at all.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Same in the US. However, getting the security clearance transferred is *much* easier than getting one from scratch (which, as someone else noted, can take months). It's especially easier if the clearance is currently active. So it's worthwhile to get one with whomever will get you one and then move to where you really want to be; having a currently active clearance will be a big leg up.
Almost, but a bit more involved.
In the US it depends on what type of clearance you get. Higher level clearances are tied to an employer, and will be suspended if you leave. A new employer can reactivate the clearance within 5 years, and of course a new more brief checking. Lower level clearances can be personal, and not tied to an employer. Those also expire in 5 years if not renewed (spend $$)
That said, the clearance by itself does not give you access to anything. Each assignment will have it's own rules, and you must be sworn in to each assignment. These assignments require X classification, but each is unique. I worked with agents at the DOD that left the room during certain times because they were not sworn on to the program. Even with a higher clearance, if they saw data on said project they would have to go through the normal debriefing process and it was reported as an incident. Incidents with DSS are not necessarily bad, and were somewhat expected during audits.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There is often a bigger disconnect between contractors and internal staff due to a different reporting structure etc.
When you've got a revolving door of contractors it's harder to give them the same amount of attention that you can to permanent staff.
We didn't bother advertising a job and do the normal recruiting. He was pretty good, got along with others and had some familiarity with our project(s). I can't emphasize strongly enough that he was a **known** in terms of skill and fit and that weighed heavily in just offering him a position rather than publicly advertising an open position.
As for paid vs unpaid, I have nothing against paid, however an article another poster in this thread offered shows that for some majors an unpaid internship can increase the odds of a job offer by 10% to 20%. Admittedly paid internships increase the odds of a job by far more and are a benefit to a wider range of majors. My only point is that unpaid internships are not necessarily a losing strategy for some students.
Those were the days
Those were also the days where a junior CS major could get a part-time job programming for a local hole--in-the wall company, rent a 4 or 5 bedroom house with some school mates and pay for school, rent, computers and still have a little beer money left over.
You get what you pay for.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Shall I work for free protecting the very organizations that declined me even a job interview, or shall I work for a nice cushy salary pilfering from them? Decisions, decisions...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Just remember, under the Old Regime, man oppressed man. Under the New Regime, they reversed that...
Agreed, in that both mainstream US political parties are nearly identical when it comes to screwing over US citizens. It's only the precise manner of implementation and rates at which individual liberty is lost that are up for debate.
Time for a convention of States. http://conventionofstates.com/
Strat
Interesting. A Tea Party site because the Republican Party just isn't conservative or reactionary enough, advertising BlazeTV because FauxSnuz isn't conservative enough either. They're advocating a 'constitutional convention' to rewrite the Constitution to their liking, doing away with things like taxes, the EPA, the FDA, all the social safety nets, and so forth. Sounds like some 'almost a good idea', except they didn't bother to think through the repercussions OR tell you what some of those repercussions will be. No EPA means we go back to the smoggy skies I knew as a kid in the 50's. No FDA means they can legally sell contaminated meat, mix e. coli and rats into your ground round and you can't do shit about it. No taxes means a miniscule and powerless government, which means ZERO protection from predatory corporations. Dave Koch, one-time Libertarian candidate for Veep, is a serious backer of this. His platform included the usual Teap bullshit - repeal income tax, destroy the IRS, the EPA, the FTC, in general, if there was a government agency that had standing to keep his companies honest and nonpredatory, he was against it, all for the 'public good' of course. Dave Koch and his brother inherited the John Birch Society from their daddy along with a few hundred million bucks, and morphed the JBS into the Tea Party. All a matter of public record, which, if they get their way, is gonna go byebye.
I saw an interesting thing about the 'abuse of executive orders legislating from the Oval Office'. Nice propaganda piece. Executive orders are how the President runs the Executive branch of the Feds. They have no standing outside the Executive branch, i.e., El Presidente can't write an executive order dismissing Congress or the Supremes and declare himself El Presidente For Life, or putting laws on the books because he thinks they need to be there for whatever reason. They just don't work that way. It's more of a thing of 'Congress has legislated Policy X, and the Supreme Court has upheld that decision, and it is now a matter of law. This is how we will implement Policy X to bring the government into compliance.'
Kennedy was able to dissolve the CIA by executive order because the CIA was part of the Executive branch, and the tasks it performed were to be taken up by the Department of Defense, also part of the Executive ('Commander in Chief', remember), as was the FBI, a part of the Department of Justice, which falls under the Executive branch. Congress could pass any legislation they wanted to to try to prevent it, but would have triggered a constitutional crisis that the Supremes would have had to sort out. Fortunately, for the CIA, at least, Kennedy got assassinated, and one of LBJ's first steps was to write executive orders saying 'Never mind!! Just kidding!! Go back to what you were doing when you pissed Kennedy off!!'
It's the same principle that the Supremes couldn't step in to rewrite the rules Congress operates under. Not their department, they have no say and no standing. The Supremes can write any decision they want to regarding the operation of Congress, and Congress can, quite rightly, tell them to go piss up a rope. This is called 'balance of powers', and is the way it's written in the Constitution to keep one branch of the government from going batshit crazy and fucking things up for the rest of government.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
They're advocating a 'constitutional convention' to rewrite the Constitution to their liking,...
Yeah, first attack the messengers, then attempt to assign intentions and actions to them that are nowhere but in your mind.
Try actually reading the content and maybe actually do a little independent research instead of parroting talking points.
You can start with the FAQ: http://www.conventionofstates.com/sites/default/files/COS%20FAQs%20handout.pdf
But of course, that might disturb your established biases and world-view.
Congress has abrogated their duties and obligations by creating Federal agencies, departments, etc and transferring the ability to make laws and/or regulations with the power of law, which is prima facia un-Constitutional on it's face. The President thinks that he has the power to decide what laws and what parts he'll enforce and when, effectively bypassing a large portion of Congress' powers and checks completely.
Congress is no longer an effective check on expansion of Federal scope and power. It has become a club for career politicians who only want to increase their power, wealth, and control while using the power of the government and their position in it to make certain they remain in office, often for decades. It no longer represents the people or the best interests of the nation.
The US is on the ragged edge of an economic and social collapse. The government is the source of the problem, therefor cannot, is incapable of, and has no real will to fix the problems it has created. It's now up to the citizens to take action. If you've got a better idea, get up and do something instead of kibitzing on what others who actually take action do.
Talk is cheap.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The Federal Government is broken.
Washington D.C. will never voluntarily relinquish its power. Left unchecked, the government will continue to bankrupt this nation and destroy the liberty of the people. It is time for citizens and the States to act and we have the solution.
The 'solution' they're proposing is an end run around Congress, in that the 'faq' states that said 'convention' can show up, propose Constitutional amendments, and have them instantly ratified, even though they admit in their faq that the Federal government is in compliance with all amendments so far:
In addition to this, it should be noted that the federal government has not violated the amendments passed in recent years. Women’s suffrage, for example, has been 100% upheld.
So, they claim the Feds are overreaching their authority and bypassing the constitution even though they admit that is not the case? And that this is not an attempt to do an end run around Congress to rewrite the Constitution?
Incorrect, but thank you for playing. Article V plainly states:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.
You might only need 34 states to stick the gun to Congress' head, but you still need 38 to pull the trigger. AND said amendment MUST still go through Congress even after said 34 states hand it to Congress on a platter, passing with a 2/3 majority vote in both houses. That pesky bit of 'all legislation must go through Congress' and 'be proposed by the Congress', remember?
What are these guys calling for? Let's see, from the website:
Meckler said that “the purpose of the convention is to limit the scope, power, and jurisdiction of the federal government,” and “that’s a debate we should be having during a presidential year.”
Beck added that when he has spoken with lawmakers about the topic, they have told him that “the most important thing you can do is restrain our power.” But Congress will never willingly impose term limits on itself, they add. It must happen through the states.
“Our role is to organize the citizenry,” Meckler concluded. “My background is in the Tea Party movement, and so we know how to organize. We have citizens in every state, and we’re organizing literally at the state legislative level in all 50 states right now.”
We're talking about Mark Meckler here, co-founder of 'Tea Party Patriots', funded by the Koch Brothers. Ah, but Meckler resigned from TPP and started 'Citizens For Self-Governance', as well as working for a 'Super-PAC' called Campaign for Primary Accountability (bankrolled by 3 Texican billionaires), still pushing for the Tea Party platform of 'limit the scope, power and juristiction of the federal government', so nothing's really changed except the name on the door. What do they want to limit? Taxation, mainly, and regulatory agencies. Basically, anything that would cause the backers of CFS-G to spend some of their profits, like those pesky Environmental Protection Agency 'illegally regulating health and safety' to corporations, the IRS 'illegally taxing corporate profits', OSHA 'illegally regulating safety concerns and mandating safety standards', the usual lot. If it costs a corporation a buck in profits, they're against it. Who funds C
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
Excuse me, I meant Leo Strauss, not Levi. It's 2AM here and I need caffeine...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.