Slashdot Mirror
Tech Firms Seek Washington's Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances (bloomberg.com)
Major tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter are interested in hiring workers with top-secret security clearances as they deal with foreign meddling on their platforms and come under increased risk of hacks, reports Bloomberg. From the article: In doing so, companies such as Facebook are competing with defense contractors, financial firms and the U.S. government itself. Security clearances are a rare and valued commodity, whether at a bank trying to prevent hackers from stealing credit-card data and emptying accounts or at a manufacturer building parts for a stealth fighter or missile-defense radar system. Bringing former government cyber warriors on board at companies can facilitate interactions with U.S. agencies like the NSA or CIA as well as help the firms understand how to build stronger systems on their own. "They have the tradecraft," said Ronald Sanders, a former associate director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and now director of the school of public affairs at the University of South Florida. "And the trade craft is some of the best in the world."
It wasn't worth it. Constant invasive background checks on you and people close to you; you have to disclose basically everything about your life to the government, such as everywhere you've lived for the last seven years, monthly bank statements for all of your back accounts for the last year, personal information about all of your in-laws, and so on; and you have to constantly take training classes that teach you how to be paranoid and never trust anybody else. I was starting to experience serious anxiety problems, all so that I could work in a concrete bunker that had no connection to the outside world, on dummy terminals that connected to ancient computers that were doing classified work that you're not sure the government even should be doing.
I quit and decided that I'll never work at another job that requires a government clearance, and I've been much happier for it.