NSA Risks Talent Exodus Amid Morale Slump, Trump Fears (reuters.com)

Dustin Volz and Warren Strobel, writing for Reuters: The National Security Agency risks a brain-drain of hackers and cyber spies due to a tumultuous reorganization and worries about the acrimonious relationship between the intelligence community and President Donald Trump, according to current and former NSA officials and cybersecurity industry sources. Half-a-dozen cybersecurity executives told Reuters they had witnessed a marked increase in the number of U.S. intelligence officers and government contractors seeking employment in the private sector since Trump took office on Jan. 20. One of the executives, who would speak only on condition of anonymity, said he was stunned by the caliber of the would-be recruits. They are coming from a variety of government intelligence and law enforcement agencies, multiple executives said, and their interest stems in part from concerns about the direction of U.S intelligence agencies under Trump. Retaining and recruiting talented technical personnel has become a top national security priority in recent years as Russia, China, Iran and other nation states and criminal groups have sharpened their cyber offensive abilities. NSA and other intelligence agencies have long struggled to deter some of their best employees from leaving for higher-paying jobs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

Comments

All my friends in NSA are looking

[JoshuaZ]

This is completely anecdotal; I'm a mathematician and I know a lot of people who work for the NSA. Almost every single one of them right now is quietly or not so quietly looking for other work. At least one of them has an undated resignation letter in their desk ready to go if they are asked to do anything that they find morally questionable (and this is someone who has generally defended NSA's actions in the past). The morale at NSA right now is in a massive slump.

Re: All my friends in NSA are looking

[Anonymous Coward]

Then he should have left after Snowden. Your friend is a liar and a hypocrite.

Re: All my friends in NSA are looking

[Fire_Wraith]

Not everything the NSA (or other agencies) do is morally questionable, unless you're somehow of the belief that the entire business of intelligence is so. I spent several years working for NSA/CSS, and I was never asked to do anything remotely questionable. That said, I did not doubt that others were likely pushed to do questionable things in the name of the War on Terror. I liked to think that I would have had the courage to stand up and so no if I had been so asked, though I never was. Should I have quit, on the basis of a hypothetical, knowing that the work I was doing was actively helping save the lives of innocent people?

Re: All my friends in NSA are looking

[Anonymous Coward]

While what Snowden revealed was awful, it wasn't entirely unexpected.

No, it wasn't unexpected, but prior to that, there was plausible deniability. We all suspected, but couldn't be sure.

Now we know (without any tinfoil) they routinely commit criminal activities against the people of USA, and since none of them have been arrested and charged, everyone can be pretty sure that it's not going to stop.

Snowden hasn't even been pardoned yet. Right now, all we have are presidents supporting the NSA in its conflict against The People, and when your boss says "keep doing that" then you're going to keep doing that. Pardoning Snowden would be a no-brainer fundamental easy thing to do, whether you're going to actually have the org start flying straight, or even just pay lip service and continue the criminal activities under the radar. Until it happens, NSA is perceived as openly anti-American. If you work for the NSA, most people think that you're a crookl, even if you're just a receptionist with no power who never breaks the law.

Yes, they probably do things for us. But they have this unresolved scandal. Nothing Nixon did could ever possibly matter until Watergate was resolved. Justice must be served.

This happens with every change in administration

[El Cubano]

The "same" thing happened when Obama was elected. Bush had significantly expanded many intelligence programs and there lots of folks in the intelligence community who feared that Obama's campaign focus on closing Guantanamo and pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan along with his focus on transparency and civil liberties meant that he would gut the entire community and all of its big programs.

They were wrong. It wasn't long before morale rebounded when people figured out Obama wasn't going to drastically shake things up.

Now, I think Trump, given his personality and what he has done so far, is more likely to shake things up then Obama was, but in the end this will end up being something that we point to the next time the administration changes and there is a story about people in the intelligence community fearing changes suffer a morale slump and start thinking about leaving.

Heck, the intelligence community loses way more people to the private sector because of things like "I can keep my phone with me at my desk," "I can talk about my work in public", and "I don't have to deal with the insanity that is government bureaucracy" way more than "the president might ask me to do something I find objectionable."

The truth is that the intelligence has a very robust oversight apparatus and you don't have to look very hard to see that congress actually like holding the intelligence community accountable. Are there abuses? Definitely, just like with anything else. However, they are about as common as instances of actual voter fraud. In addition to that, if Trump gets the defense budget increases he is seeking, that will translate directly into increased funding for the intelligence community, which will likely improve morale overall.

Re:Why Now?

[hey!]

Well, an agency like the NSA does do more than one thing, you know.

This is called the selective attention fallacy. We all know that the NSA does many legitimate and non-controversial things. We just act like everyone there is involved in the controversial ones.

Morale problems, eh?

[king neckbeard]

I feel SO SORRY that the professional constitutional and human rights violators aren't feeling all that chipper about their work.