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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.
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.
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
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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.
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. . . .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. . . .
A quick check reveals that there are approximately 12,989 federal employees making salary more than the VP, in fact.
Virtually all work for the VA and are medical officers, doctors, or dentists. Many are employed by NIH as medical officers. A few by the military as, you may have guessed, medical officers, and a stray here and there by the FDIC, SEC, etc.Six federal employees make $400,000 or more. I do not include awards, which boost pay, but we're talking salary here.
Mind you, 13,000 employees in the US government is a relatively minuscule sample. You're not out earning the VP even for typical agency executive positions. But for doctors you have to compete, since asking a skilled MD to take an 80% pay cut isn't realistic, and a variety of skilled workers such as attorneys or financial experts likewise.
I'm not yet as concerned about the NSA being unable to retain experienced talent as I ought to be, because the mission of the NSA has been so perverted that a certain level of incompetence is appealing. But selective incompetence is what I would like, and that doesn't work either.
Time to restrain the surveillance state. A valuable but appropriate mission might attract good candidates. Restraining the self-righteous or over zealous might be part of the impetus for this exodus...
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.
There is SOME truth here: Government pay DOES seriously lag behind private sector pay. But the contracting world isn't MUCH better. High-end federal contractors make perhaps a quarter to a third higher than "govvies", but the 10 times cost of a fed is an exaggeration. On the average, a contractor, at fully-burdened rate, costs somewhat more than a Fed does, for the same skills and experience (and that varies by the skill in question, and location), but not overwhelmingly more.
The advantage to contractors, is that they can be dropped almost immediately at no cost to the Government. An actual Fed can drag out a dismissal for years, collecting pay and seniority while doing so. And in the meantime, if they transfer to another agency. . . the attempt to drop them goes away. . .
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.
But when you meet someone who obviously has a brain and would have been successful even if they hadn't chosen to be a high-ranking officer, you have to wonder what their motivation is. I've never really got to the bottom of it because those people I've met like that are quite cagey and tend to hide behind some argument about "service to the country" and so on.
That's a bit cynical and possibly says much about you. Certainly you cannot totally disbelieve that there are people who truly are motivated by a moral imperative to serve their country. I understand that you may not agree with their motivations, but why can't you at least believe their stated reason?
One apropos example that has served as a sort of personal inspiration for my whole life is the case of the father of a friend of mine. The man was a successful surgeon, and an immigrant to the US. When I was in high school he resigned from private practice and joined the military as a surgeon with the stated purpose that he wanted to give back to the country that he was so proud to have joined. I'd hate to be the type of person who suspected some ulterior motive there.
A word of advice for you, since you say you've "never really gotten to the bottom of it" when trying to understand these people: Maybe you should try listening to and accepting what they say are their reasons instead of assuming they are some cagey deceivers.
Political colouration, etc. aside (which is really just pettiness... literally classing billions of people as "one of those two types of people"), how do intelligent people work in blind obedience to service to their nation?
I think the answer is, they buy into the propaganda and the myth of what America is and stands for. They basically believe the reasons we are given for why we go to war. They think that while the US may occasionally behave badly at home or abroad, it is generally a good nation that tries to live up to its ideals.
Personally, I agree with Gen. Butler's view that war is a racket, waged to make money for the corporations involved, extend American power and influence, and to make the world safe for American business. I would never work for the military or intelligence industries, because I do not share their perspectives and values. But for those who take the world at face value, and generally don't look too deeply into what is going on and why, it can be an attractive option.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
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
This is hilariously stupid.
It's not saving any money, or draining any "swamps".
The same positions exist, paying the same rate, and are now being occupied by less-skilled stand-ins to defend the nation against hostile foreign intelligence agencies.
As ex-military I will say that the "I love my country" guys were mostly in the military to do shit that is hard to do as a civilian. Mostly blowing stuff up, but the outright psychos just enjoyed treating others like shit. Some used it to rationalize their brainwashing. "Exactly why the fuck do I keep signing up?"
Your surgeon friend would be a rare breed but was probably a good guy.
"moral" or "morale"?
When you meet a guy who goes into the army because he failed school, sure, that's a good option for him... job security, a decent amount of respect and professionalism, transferable skills. It makes sense. But when you meet someone who obviously has a brain and would have been successful even if they hadn't chosen to be a high-ranking officer, you have to wonder what their motivation is. I've never really got to the bottom of it because those people I've met like that are quite cagey and tend to hide behind some argument about "service to the country" and so on.
You are the people fake news is written for. There is a world of information available to you, but you only want to hear what is slanted for you. I'll give it a shot since you haven't gotten to the bottom of it - the words will be wasted, but you've provoked my moral outrage.
I enlisted in the US Army in 1998; among different scholarships I had a full four-year scholarship to Michigan State. I opted to join the army instead. I enlisted for the maximum enlistment (six years) because of my intent to make a lifetime in service to trying to make the world a better place - to do my part to see that kids didn't grow up like I did. I joined the infantry - 11B. My ASVAB scores were phenomenal - I could have done anything.
I didn't join for guns, or for a uniform, or for failing school - I joined because I wanted to help - to be a part of something with a noble cause - protecting America, bringing peace to war torn parts of the world. Patriotism is a real thing. Young men committed suicide when they were denied entry to service during World War 2. This country's administration, its choices, and treatment of its citizens might not be worthy of such loyalty, but infantrymen enforce the last 300 meters of foreign policy; they don't make it.
Two years into my enlistment, I was much...much more worldly. I was regretting having turned down college because I'd met so many retired infantry NCOs serving food in mess halls and defacs with the same story: "I've been infantry for 30 years, retired, and I don't have any useful life skills in the civilian world, so now I serve food." That's a terrifying future for a 20 year old. In theory, the military pays for 75% of the schooling costs for classes you take in service, but trying to go to college while being a soldier isn't very plausible. At least for an infantryman.
Three of the officers in my company were West Point graduates (USMA). I was young, impressionable, and that's what I wanted to look like when I grew up. Officers could do more; help more - I wanted that. I wrote a letter to my senator, my congressman, the President - I went up my chain of command and got a letter of recommendation from my battalion commander; paired with the nomination of my Senator (and I had a powerful story to tell about overcoming adversity), I got into West Point.
My army career ended up taking me into the world of Information Assurance - and here I'm going to get hazy - but I helped develop and test zero day exploits, develop cyber policy for the army - did some really interesting things. I still have my "I am the Fed" T-Shirt from one of the DefCons I went to when I got targeted in the "Spot the Fed" game. In the last decade, there's been lots of feds, so I don't know if they even play it anymore.
I have a thousand stories of helping people - because its the right thing to do.
Patriotism is real. It exists for people of all backgrounds and all educations. People make choices beyond their self interest - philanthropy is a word. If you truly discard that story and look for ulterior motive, its because you have self-imposed blinders and earplugs and refuse to hear or see anything you don't already believe - *YOU* have an ulterior motive.
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 ...
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If we could actually be sure the targets were kept foreign, sure. Instead we have ample evidence that the NSA has cast a much wider net, and undermined much of our infrastructure to assure they can gain access. The result is a porous compute infrastructure that keeps being broken. Now we will never know how many exploits were intentionally placed, but any non-zero number is too many. With no trust I see a brain drain there as a net positive until the organization has a real come-to-jesus moment and stops sweeping up the citizenry in their dragnet operations.
...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.