Slashdot Mirror
NSA's Top Talent is Leaving Because of Low Pay, Slumping Morale and Unpopular Reorganization (washingtonpost.com)
Ellen Nakashima and Aaron Gregg, reporting for the Washington Post: The National Security Agency is losing its top talent at a worrisome rate as highly skilled personnel, some disillusioned with the spy service's leadership and an unpopular reorganization, take higher-paying, more flexible jobs in the private sector (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source). Since 2015, the NSA has lost several hundred hackers, engineers and data scientists, according to current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter. The potential impact on national security is significant, they said. Headquartered at Fort Meade in Maryland, the NSA employs a civilian workforce of about 21,000 there and is the largest producer of intelligence among the nation's 17 spy agencies. The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing. Their work also included monitoring a broad array of subjects including the Islamic State, Russian and North Korean hackers, and analyzing the intentions of foreign governments, and they were responsible for protecting the classified networks that carry such sensitive information.
Drain the spy swamp.
Gee, I can't imagine why people are losing their enthusiasm for working for the government. Unless, of course, they can see that it's counterproductive to the goal of freedom.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
it can't be easy working as a state-sponsored terrorist, engaging in espionage and sabotage of organizations and networks belonging to countries you speak of as allies.
I could never see any morale in what the NSA does. Another case of a Pandoras box opened with grim consequences for everyone.
Instead of a Information network contributing to human kind we now have a weapons platform that allows to kill without a trace.
The VP's salary is $230,700. It's damn near impossible for anyone in government to get close to that, and when they do, the amount of paperwork to get it is huge. Or should I say yuge.
Anyone decent should easily be able to make that, or more, in private industry or freelancing.
And why anyone with any kind of morals would want to work for this administration is beyond me.
Don't want to work for Russian pole smokers.
Again, the Kremlin wins. So does Beijing. Good job, GOP!
One way they can solve this is the same way as NATO, make them tax exempt on income tax it can help level the field with private pay.
Old Joke:
"But Timmy, why did you say your dad is working as a male stripper?"
"Because it's less embarrassing than admitting he's working at the NSA".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Throw every single one of these resumes in the trash if you value your company's intellectual property.
Don't be obtuse. They had no problems being part of the "intelligence community" before Trump.
Just like in Russia. When the KGB did something like that, a man named Eugene Kaspersky saw this as a good moment to start hiring more people...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...of value was lost!
...who will then charge the gov't 10x what that person was costing us before. So is the NSA's actual functionality being reduced--or just shifted elsewhere?
(And why are only NSA people demoralized? I'd be demoralized if I worked in _any_ branch of gov't...the way things are going. Private-sector jobs providing goods and services that people actually want is the most satisfying kind of work, IMHO.)
Although the departure rates are low, compared with attrition levels in the civilian technology industry
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
It's not just that they're crooked bullies or incompetent but that they're both.
The company that does the IRS website only has 1 client, the IRS. The owners are US citizens, the employees are US citizens and the company is incorporated in the Bahamas to avoid paying income tax while they ruin the lives of other US citizens.
Take some of these government contractors and the members of congress that OK these deals and strip them of their citizenship and I'd consider supporting the occupational government.
Yeah, that's what it is.
Even people that work for the US government hate it.
And that changed when?
If your answer references a date before January 20, 1981, you are wrong.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Snowden leaks showed they'd built a giant surveillance machine that could be turned at a whim against US citizens.
Putin showed how trivial it is to leverage party-above-country loyalty and gain access to that surveillance engine with his needy orange puppet.
THEY are part of that surveillance engine, it's THEIR work that funnels intelligence to US enemies. So of course they don't want to undermine their own country anymore.
Perhaps Trump will fill the void by co-operating on Intelligence matters with the Putin and the FSB? You might think I'm joking, but that was their original idea, build up muslim terrorism as an excuse to give Russia a pipeline to US intelligence.
If you notice this:
"MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin called President Trump on Sunday to thank him for the work of the Central Intelligence Agency in helping prevent an Islamic State attack in the northern Russian city of St. Petersburg." From December...."The attackers planned to strike crowded sites including Kazan Cathedral, a landmark Orthodox Christian church, the statement said.
This has all the talking point elements: Cooperation, muslims, terrorists....., also leveraging Christian/Republicans/Fox sympathies. It establishes the data flow. Who could object to telling the Russians about a terrorist plot against fellow Christians? Not Fox News certainly, not Republicans...
So don't be surprised if you hear more Russian voices at the NSA and see more data flows to the Russians. They're not idiots, they were misguided patriots.
Same people who couldn't foresee arc of the Arab Spring.
Sure, because the previous presidents weren’t plutocratic oligarchs who dreams of being the Putin of the West. Such things severely affect morale.
these guys can clear $500k/yr working for Wallstreet. It's no wonder they don't want to settle for $140k/yr working for Uncle Sam. Having their Boss call them out for being part of the "Deep State" conspiracy is just a dingleberry on that shit cake.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Around the time we got a president that wants to fellate a Russian strongman leader.
That's around 1% - that's a pretty small rate to lose people at - people change their life circumstances (birth, marriage, death, moving, etc.) and just get another job.
They probably *hire* more than 150 new people a year.
If they were losing 20-30%, *that* would be a problem.
You don't stick around to be kicked some more. I don't blame them one bit. Gag rules, being told what you can say or not. Land of the free my a**.
Probably some of them are BTC rich.
People are willing enough to work for Google and Facebook, I don't see why the authoritarianism or the oligarchical nature of the business would be a problem for them.
They are probably going to better managed and higher paying jobs as contractors doing the same work for the NSA.
...until the contract gets recompeted and salaries are slashed. At first, contract work looks good because they can pay more than government civilians get. But then you find out that they can also pay less when the people managing the contract redefine success as having a body filling the position. And if you can't get people to accept the lower pay, just reduce the education and experience requirements. What could possibly go wrong?
. . . .among her complaints were being pigeonholed (i.e. if you were good at a particular thing, they want you to concentrate on that thing, instead of broadening one's skill base), promotions were glacial (she had her Masters and STILL was a GS-9-equivalent), and the pay is abysmal, compared to their peers in the private sector.
On the other hand, 6 years experience out of undergrad, plus a Masters, and she wanted 300+K. You're not going to get that ANYWHERE in Club Feb. . . .
Low pay vs. private sector (gov't rarely keeps up & black budget ops = probably why, money's spent there instead of compensation) + the point on 'diversity' & I've heard it from HIGH RANKING FIELD GRADE OFFICERS - instead of 'best man for the job' you get 'diversity' instead & YET EXPECT "TOP-NOTCH" WORK? Give us a break! Lastly - ever had a boss that was DEFINTELY UP TO NO GOOD? If you have, & you were smart?? You GOT THE "F" OUTTA DODGE before he is caught in his illegal shenanigans before he tosses YOU "under the bus" making YOU his FALL GUY taking the blame (you get caught up & shredded in the mix of the blender blades - not good).
* Best points on this page, good job to those that made them!
APK
P.S.=> They ALL apply here, no doubt about it... apk
Trump has called out the intelligence community as being part of some "deep state" conspiracy. True or not, that clearly indicates he will view their work as suspect.
If anyone worked in that agency with a sincere desire to protect the American people and inform their national leaders of threats against the country, then that person's motivation is going to evaporate. When your leader has basically announced that he won't extend any consideration or trust to your organization, is there any value to your work? At the end of the day, what will all of your efforts accomplish?
This is not encouraging at all, but I can understand why they might feel this way.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
> The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing
> the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing.
Do we actually need those people? My understanding is that the current administration demanded a change to the daily intelligence briefing such that it is now a single page, with pictures. Yes, really. I'm serious.
Just how many NSA, CIA and other TLA people do we need to produce this? Could they employ much younger people using finger-painting and still achieve the same global geopolitical impact as the large number of people who are leaving NSA?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Oh, January 20, 2009.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The low pay and low morale take a while to set in. So it existed with Obama too. The trick is now Trump is calling them liars and unamerican on a daily basis on top of everything else.
I expect in the next year to see higher turnover at the FBI too.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I can completely understand NSA workers being demoralized. Their mission has changed from protecting U.S. citizens from externals threats to becoming the threat to U.S. citizens. If my job were to continuously violate the U.S. Constitution, and thereby be hated by most of America, I would be demoralized, too.
The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing
Their jobs have been replaced by a script that generates random quotes from FoxNews with the President's name on it and happy emoji faces.
Believe it or not, there are still people who are loyal to the country and "believe in the mission." Lots of people in these agencies come from the military, so you're bound to have a committed core of individuals. But it's an organization like anywhere else...the place I work has serious faults but they're definitely not something to throw a temper tantrum about. Some people think differently about this, get fed up and leave. It's all up to personal choice, and I would think anyone smart enough to get a technical position at the NSA would be able to go work anywhere else...these aren't your typical Keyboarding Specialist III civil service workers who make a home for themselves deep in an agency's bureaucracy. I don't throw a fit and leave my position because I have the opportunity to do interesting work even if I have to work around dumb decisions above my level.
Just like businesses, government agencies outsource everything they can as well. I would think that some of the defection is to contractors, where they would trade job security for a higher salary. I imagine there's basically a few "Spies R Us" firms right in the DC metro area that does the same analysis work the official TLAs do.
Another place they could end up at is management consulting firms. I work for an IT services company and we respond to RFPs all the time -- there's a lot of pressure to keep up the credentials on the individuals presented as the "A Team" (who gets swapped out when the contract is signed.) There's a lot of cache in saying "Dude, this guy's ex-NSA" when referring to a security consultant. Even if they barely do any work, just having them is like the big tech companies employing Technical Fellows.
Still other employers are basically anywhere else math geniuses get jobs. Insurance companies still pay actuaries handsomely. Investment banks doing HFT would love to have a few NSA people on staff and would probably overlook some of their quirks. The private sector does pay much better than government work over the short term. And, post-Cold War and post-Snowden, there's less public acceptance of the spy agencies. I'm sure there's tons of issues they silently prevent or give advance notice of, and I'll bet that's what's keeping some people on staff...it's naive to think that other countries aren't spying on their citizens or foreign governments as well.
So out of 21000 a few hundred looked for another job?
That's what 1 to 4.5 % of the workforce over 2 years.
Doesn't sound too out of the ordinary.
Might be more when hiring of new staff to replace lost is accounted for but doesn't seem as dire as the summary makes it out ot be.
I expect in the next year to see higher turnover at the FBI to
Here's the best part. The more the con artist keeps whining about the FBI doing its job, the more people leave and the more he can whine about them not doing their job.
The same with the NSA. This is one of many organizations he has called part of the "deep state", that the information they provide is worthless, they don't know what they're doing and so on.
Well golly gee, who wants to work for someone who is an incompetent idiot, a serial liar and thinks what you do is worthless?
What's that old adage about high turnover of employees? It's not them, it's you.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
the glow in the dark effect causes problems when trying to sleep and when exercising by the side of the road at night
Data is NOT intelligence. They gather "data" - they spy on Americans, illegally. Hopefully, they have read the 4th Amendment and took the bold step to
* leave govt work
* get a better job
* not spy on Americans illegally.
BTW, I worked for the govt as a contractor. Not spying, thank you.
So employees of a government run organization are not seeing similar pay increases (cost of living, experience, etc) as the free market employees see? WHAT A SURPRISE!!
Pigeonholing happens everywhere...but I imagine it's way worse when you're dealing with something super-arcane.
Working in IT for big companies often results in this too. So many large companies have people responsible for one part of one process, either for separation-of-duty reasons or just because they don't want generalists. For example, if you're not the Office 365 guy, you'll never learn every facet about Azure AD unless you do it on your own. Or, if you're hired to know everything about your company's NetApp SAN, you're out of a job when they switch to EMC or move everything to the cloud, since you spent all your effort learning low-level NetApp details.
“Nearly 30,000 rank-and-file federal employees who received more than $190,823 out-earned each of the 50 state governors,” the report said.
http://www.foxnews.com/politic...
Not to mention all the other demands of working for a three letter agency. I have read that NSA workers must submit to; random phone taps, investigators check with neighbors asking about your sex life, any aspect of your life can be reviewed at anytime. All this plus low morale, average pay in an expensive city. No wonder positions are hard to fill
For a second there, I was extremely worried. I read NASA instead of NSA.
Carry on.
#DeleteFacebook
The trick is now Trump is calling them liars and unamerican on a daily basis on top of everything else.
How dare someone call a bunch of of unamerican liars, liars and unamerican? Scandalous!
Takes one to know one?
I agree, and that's why the number leaving has slowed since Obama left office. As a different article stated, it peaked in early 2016.
Since 2015, the NSA has lost several hundred hackers, engineers and data scientists, according to current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter
I didn't know that Trump took office in 2015... Trump: Winning even before winning!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing."
I didn't know they worked at Fox News?
All true. I turned down two jobs from the NSA, and have a lot of friends on the contractor side in DoD and cyber-command.. The pre-hire screening alone is pretty intrusive on the personal life side, but it's not flat out discriminatory and blunt like it used to be 10-15 years ago, but if you're an 'ass puckerer' they will know you lied on your lie detector test anyway.
It's like any organization I guess, government or private; they say all the post-hire screening is 'random', but if you're on someone's list, you'll get it often to find a reason.
But as for people leaving, I can see why they do. But alot of them took it partly for the 'cool' factor of having a job you can't talk about, nor who you do it for. Second thought was knowing how F ridiculous getting up into the upper GS scales where you are getting paid well, even for bloated Baltimore/DC pay inflation scales vs. other government areas, and not working for what most probably started at out of college as a 2nd, 3rd or 4th movement into a new or escalation into their career. That's why EVERYONE does contracting; the contracts the companies get are fucking filthy thick with money, and anyone I know who is a contractor doing that type of cyber work + has a clearance, usually clears no less than 120-150K at a minimum, and if you're REALLY good, way fucking more. Only NSA management is making that unless you're on black payrolls.
Yea, these are the SAME people that wire tapped Trump tower during the campaign, using what appears to be an illegal FISA warrant.
I say appears to be illegal because we haven't been able to find out. 18 months later and they STILL won't answer to Congress. They refuse every FOIA request until sued and demanded by a judge to comply 12 months later. I've heard them asked DIRECT questions that would EASILY clear up everything and they REFUSE to answer.
Trump isn't the problem. Its the NSA/FBI/DOJ thinking they don't have to answer to the people of this country about what they do. If that's how they feel it should be, glad to see them go. I would rather have cartoons informing the president than people who blatantly abuse power without having to be accountable giving false information to get him to do what they want instead of what should be done.
Its no accident Trump has destroyed ISIS in 1 year, a feat Obama couldn't do with theses people's help over a 6 year period.
From the article "Their work also included monitoring a broad array of subjects including ..." They forgot to mention illegally spying on Americans, lying to congress, creating malware, not telling software and hardware manufacturers know about exploits, and the list goes on.
if you were good at a particular thing, they want you to concentrate on that thing, instead of broadening one's skill base
The hilarious part is they make a big point of informing people that they need a broad range of experiences to get promoted, so not only do you have the Agency spending money reminding many employees that their current job is bad for their career, but they're also encouraging specialists to dilute their skillset in the hopes of advancement.
Also, even though the pay may be higher while working as a contractor the benefits are usually worse. And for those in the industry long enough they have family and age brings on health issues. Benefits become a huge selling point. So to leave civil servant jobs is actually a big deal for older workers.
Just imagine if you had joined, thinking that you would be protecting you and your country.
Then you find out that your primary mission is to plunge the totality of humanity, including yourself, your own famliy and your fellow countrymen, into a dystopian panopticon. And voters don't even take elections seriously anymore, so there's basically no hope that the head of the branch of government you work for, is ever going to come around and take on a pro-American perspective. And that's how it is going to stay for the totality of your career. (Or so you thought, but then it got even worse because now the head of the executive branch is an unprincipled con-man who tries to convince everyone he's merely a foolish child.)
You will be working against everything you wanted to work for. You are one of America's enemies, in action, if not in attitude. You'd love to serve your country, but you've learned that nobody working for the US government is ever going to serve their country, because it's against the rules. Every single time you do hear about a patriot, they're called a traitor and they're prosecuted or driven out of the country. You know that if you ever were to do something good, you would be quickly moving away -- or moving to prison -- too.
Of course you would leave. The only people who would even be tempted to stay, are moles working for other governments.
This "news" is far from honest. It is not "rank and file" employees making over $200k. It is medical specialists (such as the top earner, a heart surgeon with the VA) who could earn way more outside of federal employment, or members of the Senior Executive Service or political appointees. They make no mention of the type of job the individuals are doing (for example, the NASA examples are senior people in charge of a Center, another is in charge of Human Space Exploration for the nation, etc with similar for other agencies). This fails to account that Uncle Sam pays less than these same people would earn in the private sector.
Of course, if your goal is to shut down the federal government by driving out experienced, competent people, and racing to the bottom...then their report makes sense.
Heck, their critique of the Presidio Trust mentions it is self sustaining, (as in was started with federal tax funds but doesn't any more as it brings in more than it needs) but only in passing and criticizes the high salary of its director (they imply he is simply an HR drone, when he is an executive- think C-level office-, and they are located in SF, CA and therefore the salaries are adjusted for the location). Every federal job falles into a job classification known as a "series". The series title is very generic. (HR, General Engineer, Lawyer, etc). Even SES types are assigned a series based on the job they do and the people they oversee. This report fails to explain that allowing the generic series titles appear we as taxpayers are overpaying for the work people are doing.
We suffer from reverse pigeonholing -- everyone is expected to be a generalist on every subject *and* a specialist on particular subjects when tasked with it.
I'm not sure which is worse, really. I work with some people with EMC storage experience and their knowledge of closely related technologies is near zero (the guy who installs iSCSI storage couldn't configure the needed VLAN access or set jumbo frames in any switch if his life depended on it). They even say stupid things, the really hard-core EMC guy talks up fiber channel by talking about Ethernet as if shared-access hubs were still installed someplace.
I'm more on the enforced generalist, demanded specialist side and I'm sure I do equally stupid things, but it's unavoidable when training is "read these PDFs" and "watch this webinar".
Those working for Third Echelon are very skilled if a small force.
Well said. I am in the Judicary, I could make tons more on the private side, but I believe in the mission of the Judiciary and they do try to stay out of the normal news cycle (Kozinski excepted). You are right, you might not like the Feds but someone has to do the job; do you want incompetency that may affect your lives or pay a competitive wage so that the projects and procurements get done right (or close to right)? I gave up a bunch of "rights" that you enjoy to be in this position: I cannot donate to a campaign, no signage on my lawn or car, cannot advocate for a candidate, etc etc. I am investigated every 5 years for my High Risk - Public Trust position and have to submit my financial holdings to the Ethics office every year (which you "the citizen" can request via a FOIA request). My life is an open book, if I get busted for anything my employer will know by Monday morning and I'll probably be shown the door. Every employer has it's ups and downs, it is unfortunate that the NSA could not stay in their swim lane and did what they were originally intended to do. Our politicians (both Democrat and Republican) have perverted the constitution and our bill of rights; and the NSA is just a sock puppet serving their master(s). Posting anonymously on this one as I don't want this to come back at me because I am speaking of my employer.
I work in the tech industry. I do a lot of interviews. If I see NSA/GCHQ on a resume I refuse to do the interview. Anyone working for agencies that do indiscriminate spying on the people they are supposed to protect should be shunned.
An employer with 21,000 employees losing "several hundred" over two to three years would be thrilled.
A better headline might be "NSA has 99.9% annual employee retention rate"
They were working for the NSA and you weren't. You see they have all the inside knowledge, knew about those Clinton emails, the deals with Putin etc. Nudge nuge, wink wink, lets get out while the getting is good.
I'm sure some people want to work for a plutocratic oligarch, and NSA will now fill with them, making the rest of the professionals want to leave even more. Expect NSA to become less technical and more political and illegal.
"Since 2015, the NSA has lost several hundred hackers, engineers and data scientists, according to current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter."
I don't think Trump was president in 2015, but I could be wrong.
Right, because ACTUALLY SPYING ON this person you seem to hate so much, plus illegally spying on regular Americans, with zero evidence he's done anything of the sort or even wants to, is somehow better. Got it. You're an idiot.
The people who leave are always the best, never the worst. That is the curse of government employment.
I applied to Cybercom last year. I have over 20 years of technical and technical leadership experience - they offered me a salary of $86K. Have fun living anywhere near Ft Meade on that - never mind that making almost twice that I have mortgage and bills to match.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I think this is unlikely to make a change to Trumps decision making capability. Unless the people at NSA were making picture book briefings for Tiny Hands Donny he probably wasn't paying attention.
What's that old adage about high turnover of employees? It's not them, it's you.
Sometimes it is the job and the immediate manager can't really improve things more than he or she has. The point does apply though.
The bit where Trump is quite willing to weaken the national security of the country no matter how many deaths that may eventually cause, if it helps him politically, is fucking scary.
Terrorists attacks and other major events can sometimes be stopped, but if you weaken the policemen, well then it is likely that less will be stopped.
From TFS:
The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing.
Daily intelligence briefings for the Chief Executive used to be a vitally important component of policy formulation. Then President Chump was sworn in, and suddenly they became completely irrelevant, because they bored him. He refuses to read or even listen to them, even when they mostly contain brightly-colored graphics, videos, and other visual elements designed to appeal to the functional-illiterate-in-chief. They've also been tailored to avoid topics, such as the latest intelligence on Russian psyops interference in the 2016 election, that push the Orange Oaf's buttons. (Let me point you to an alternative citation, because the Washington Post article may be paywalled for those who don't know how to use private browsing and cookie deletion to get around it.)
Think about how you'd feel if you had dedicated your career to producing detailed, highly-nuanced, daily reports on a whole range of intelligence topics for the most powerful national leader on the planet - only to discover that the new guy is completely uninterested in any information that can't be expressed in crayon drawings and bumper sticker catchphrases. Now throw in civil servant wages, and ask yourself whether that job would be in any way attractive to you?
Yeah - it's like that.
That's why they're leaving ...
Check out my novel.
Most American toilets don't have bidets. Most Americans can't appreciate the extra clean feeling from using one, even if the $22 versions work well. These aren't as nice as the $500 heated seat+water versions seen in many Japanese hotels, I can confirm.
Some bosses are dingleberries. I've only had 1 like that in 25 yrs, but they do exist. Heck, I bet some of my reports thought I was a dingleberry too. Sometimes being a boss and having your success depend on dysfunctional teams.
From the summary: "The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing."
Not much of a loss for now, the president doesn't read anyways. Let's hope they all these people got hired by Fox News, though I highly doubt it.
You simply can't change the culture of a workplace without a significant turnover of existing employees. This is what I've hoped for at the NSA/FBI for years. Keep on calling 'em out.
"The people who have left were responsible for collecting and analyzing the intelligence that goes into the president's daily briefing" Oh, those briefings that Trump says he doesn't need? Apparently Trump already knows anything the NSA would tell him anyway...a direct quote: "I don't have to be told — you know, I'm, like, a smart person" .
My assumption is that the FSB tells him whatever is really "important", and tells him that anything the "political hacks" (once again, a direct Trump quote) from those people who work in national intelligence is a "hoax".
I'd quit too if my "boss" was purposely ignoring my work and instead was always telling me (publicly and to my face) I sucked at my job and our main competition was far better at it than I ever could be!
"the guy who installs iSCSI storage couldn't configure the needed VLAN access or set jumbo frames in any switch if his life depended on it" ouch. His life might not depend on it, but your network's life certainly does. Honestly, it's probably a GOOD thing that he can't configure jumbo frames on a non-vlaned iSCSI system. Your network just might not crash quite as fast. It still will probably crash out from being flooded with iSCSI traffic, just might take a bit longer. At least knowing that it will make your inevitable troubleshooting / cleanup job easier.
It's remarkable that, despite all the hopes of Obama doing something to reverse the steady invasion of the privacy of Americans by the NSA, Trump is now achieving this by being an insulting loudmouth.
shocking! some federal government employees make more than.... state government employees.
Most federal employees are on the GS scale or its equivalent, that tops out at 160K, including a high-cost area locality.
Most states are rural, where the cost of living is much lower than say DC where a lot of federal employees live.
The fact that the salary quoted is above GS15, I would guess the federal employees are senior executives. Why not compare those salaries with senior executives in fortune 500 companies? I doubt you will see many private sector senior executives at $190K.
But by all means continue spreading the FUD
The low pay and low morale take a while to set in. So it existed with Obama too. The trick is now Trump is calling them liars and unamerican on a daily basis on top of everything else.
I expect in the next year to see higher turnover at the FBI too.
Indeed, I agree it was a mistake for Obama to appoint a Republican, but since the FBI is staffed by more conservatives than not, probably best they had one of their own leading them. Turnover might be a good thing with how the FBI has been blowing all it's cases against white terrorists organizations.
...Trump is calling them liars and unamerican on a daily basis...
Are they not liars? Have they not lied to the American public and kept secrets from the very public they ostensibly serve?
Is it not un-American to spy on everyone at all times and assist in undermining the liberty of the American people?
Our forefathers fought wars over less.
I work in infosec in Australia as a contractor and don't get out of bed for less than $1000/day, and that's doing state gov work with no clearance.
I used to work in Fed gov with clearances involved and the average was $1200/day there, easy.
I'd only take a few weeks off a year...maybe four.... so yeah.... $150k for a US contracting gig seems crazy low.
What are good contracting rates in the US ?
The article says the NSA is the major producer of intelligence. Surely it's the major consumer of intelligence?
Unless they, like, make it up as they go along.
Which would be very naughty of them if they did.
So why did they start resigning beginning in 2015 then?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I don't mind people leaving in droves.
What does bother me, though, is the thought that they're being replaced. By people who, presumably, see no issues with working for Trump.
If you think the NSA/FBI have overstepped their bounds already, think what they're going to look like by 2020.
The problem, though, is that these highly silo'd guys make all kinds of recommendations about things they know nothing about *and* they are the first to point fingers when their zillion dollar system doesn't work right. Their troubleshooting doesn't extend beyond the product's logging facility.
So losing 300 out of 21,000 employees is a crisis?
I would expect normal attrition to be greater than that.
I worked at NSA. I would love to work for Trump and every liberal should be monitored.
Big fucking deal. The highest paid "public"/"state" employee in Wyoming is the Universities football coach and she makes more than Cheney's daughter.
Fucking fools.
I looked at an NSA job once about 10 years ago. Onccccce. The pay was ludicrously low.
All their work up in smoke because it requires folks like Huma Abedin, to follow the rules.
I'd quit too!
One thing about NSA is that they do not have any real powers, other than to spy and USED to keep American networks safe.
As such, they spend all their time listening in on what foreign gov and terrorists were up to so as to avoid any foolishness on our part.
Now, with this crumbling, the west is likely to have less intel which will mean that is is easier for a foreign power to set off a war.
Keep in mind that we saw what happens when NSA is forced to lie, even by our own side. We invaded Iraq based on out and out lies by W's admin. Worst of all, they forced the NSA to back him at first and they did to their discredit. NSA is supposed to be about FACTS, not about lies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
PROBLEM: Many NSA officers are decent red-blooded Americans who signed up to serve their country and protect it from foreign enemies. Fighting the Soviets, the Chinese, Dr Evil, etc.
Now they are demoralized. Because their job has nothing to do with defending against foreign threats, and everything to do with turning America into a police surveillance state. They basically work for the Stasi, and don't like it.
PROPOSED SOLUTION: Crank up spending on the Stasi surveillance state!