Our government has such a shortage of translators for structural reasons. Many people who do know the languages that our government needs cannot pass the security clearance process needed to grant access to classified information. Having family or significant contacts abroad almost always leads to disqualification. Extensive travel experience in certain regions of the world - such as the Middle East or China - weighs against you. Homosexuality is another deal-breaker. So is credit card debt and past drug use, even if it was a few times you smoked pot in college. If your clearance requires a polygraph, you are even less likely to pass - about 30% of all those who take the test are written off as deceptive, on the basis of a test which has not been statistically validated, and which has been rendered legally invalid as evidence in a court of law. Moreover, poor performance in one of many "interviews" with background investigators - even something as mundane as nervousness - is seen as an indication of potentially treasonous inclinations. Failing to pass one clearance makes it nearly impossible for a candidate to pass any such process in the future.
Because they are rewarded for "catches", investigators have an incentive to make candidates look as bad as they can - hence anything idiosyncratic or out of the ordinary is held under suspicion. This is reinforced by the fact that these investigators are not necessarily the most well educated people around - they only need to take a few month-long courses to qualify for their job.
As a result, the people who do make it through this process are often the more mediocre candidates, those who do not have the curiosity or drive to take risks, intellectual or professional.
The government, despite its grandiose rhetoric about hunting down terrorism, has no real incentive to change. When you are behind the fence, it is virtually impossible to fire you, which means that incompetence runs rampant. The fact that captured documents are being posted online for all the world to see is evidence of this.
I have a Masters in Arabic Linguistics from Georgetown. I am a US citizen. Alongside Arabic, I speak Farsi, Urdu, Spanish, and Chinese. I also work as a software developer developing machine learning technogy. I was turned down for a security clearance because I smoked marijuana in college, 8 years ago. I do not, and cannot work for the government.
UWhen meetings are held to address a problem, it indicates that everyone recognizes that there is a problem, and that the problem is too far gone to fix. Declining enrollment in the sciences has something to do with the present administration and its friendliness towards religious fanaticism, but this is not the root cause.
Legal and cultural climates which encourage and incentivize innovation are relatively rare in human history and can easily disappear. To survive, they require the right mix of public curiosity, access to knowledge, economic vibrancy, and comfort with challenging social hiearchies. The simple fact is that it is easier for people to stick with the solutions they already have than to attempt innovation. The innovator faces not only the looming prospect of failure - after all, most innovations fail - but the opposition of the status quo, whose power rests on people sticking to the old way of doing things.
Traditionally, America has been a friendly climate to technological and scientific innovation for two reasons. First, although American culture has been staunchly anti-intellectual, this has been more than compensated for by its openness to immigrants from societies where such a stigma is not placed on academic achievement. Secondly, the American economy has been relatively open to recieving and implementing effective technological solutions. However, what happens when America becomes less friendly towards its foreigners, and when its foreigners find that there are better places to go? Moreover, what happens when America's corporate culture, compacent in their assumption that its ways will overtake the world, decides that its RnD departments no longer feed the bottom line? What happens when our legal climate provides discentives for innovation by punishing someone who stumbles across an idea which has previously been patented? What happens when security professionals are thrown in jail for discovering and publicizing flaws in some big corporation's software? What happens when an engineer with a doctorate, who spent 10 years in living conditions which could most charitably be described as monastic, finds he is making a fraction of the salary of some bullshit artist in marketing who happened to shake the right hands? Comfortable in its imperial hubris, America is telling its more curious and inquisitive citizens, "Thanks, but we won't be needing you anymore." Which is pretty much what every great civilization has announced before the inevitable.
In the scientific fields, America is competing with older civilizations such as India or China. Although they were remarkably advanced a millenium ago - India in the theoretical sciences such as algebra and formal linguistics, China in applied technology - they became complacent. The real power lay in the hands of beaurocrats, priests, and mandarins - the ancient equivalent of our lawyers, MBA's, and marketing executives - who announced that they knew all they needed to know. It was too late when Western imperialism taught them a bitter and humiliating lesson. These civilizations learned the hard way that giving up on scientific and technological innovation leads to weakness and eventually subjugation.
The simple fact is that, apart from limited and somewhat futile attempts to monitor terrorist activity online, the U.S. government has allowed the Internet to run its own course. Whether this stems from a policy of respect for freedom of speech or a simple inability to locate relevant information effectively - it is a little bit of both - the Internet works.
The point has been brought up that China is pushing for more control in order to persecute religious and political dissidents, that the Arab world would use whatever control they had been given to make things difficult for Israel, that petty regimes the world over would use their control to silence any dissent. It is true that the influx of information threatens the party line that most citizenries are given - at least for those curious enough to look. How dangerous this really is to the worlds more secretive regimes is questionable - since the Internet tends to segregate itself along linguistic barriers (most of the world's people not knowing more than one language), the Clintonian fantasy of democracy and freedom spreading through every Ethernet cable will probably not happen. Instead, what we see is a slightly more anarchic version of the cultures we see in meatspace, with the same prejudices, fears, and aspirations.
I think the real danger, if such a move is made, will be certain forms of censorship in the West. If control of the internet is handed over to regions of the world which have higher rates of petty corruption, it would be very, very easy for parties in the West - large corporations especially - to make their voices heard. A bribe here, a sugar-coated deal with some top official there, and then suddenly corporations can shut down file-sharing sites, blogs which are just a bit too critical of their product, or which publicize some piece of dirt they'd rather keep secret, you name it - as long as the site is dependent upon this country.
Join the club. I am a PhD Candidate studying Arabic and Computational Linguistics at Georgetown university. You would think that someone like me might be of great use to my country and government - remember that the government's lack of linguistic talent plays a large role in its failure in the war on terrorism and in the occupation of Iraq. Oh, also I speak Farsi, Spanish, and Chinese. I was turned down for a Top Secret Clearance because in the past I had smoked marijuana a few times - I got a letter saying that this was done in the interests of national security. Before this happened, the phone was ringing off the hook with offers. Now, I'm lucky if I can even get scumbag recruiters who might call every few months to return my calls after the first conversation - and this when I am the only person qualified for the job.
I had a roomate who had a TSC. He is a high school dropout, he has habitually used drugs in the past, associated with drug dealers, attempted to commit credit card fraud on my landlord, and he threatened to kill me several times. The government trusts him, but I am a threat to national security.
My experience has taught me that this administration and the intelligence community do not want to catch terrorists, and they do not want to protect American lives. They want to fight a culture war, in which civil liberties are eroded, homosexuals and foreigners are persecuted, and ordinary citizens live in fear of having their lives destroyed through a poorly designed database that has a high rate of "collateral damage." When I was getting the Clearance, I naively believed that it was my skills, abilities and accomplishments which would determine my eligibility.
I only pray that this experience will not get in the way elsewhere.
Do not trust these people. They do not care about you, and they do not want to protect you.
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Our government has such a shortage of translators for structural reasons. Many people who do know the languages that our government needs cannot pass the security clearance process needed to grant access to classified information. Having family or significant contacts abroad almost always leads to disqualification. Extensive travel experience in certain regions of the world - such as the Middle East or China - weighs against you. Homosexuality is another deal-breaker. So is credit card debt and past drug use, even if it was a few times you smoked pot in college. If your clearance requires a polygraph, you are even less likely to pass - about 30% of all those who take the test are written off as deceptive, on the basis of a test which has not been statistically validated, and which has been rendered legally invalid as evidence in a court of law. Moreover, poor performance in one of many "interviews" with background investigators - even something as mundane as nervousness - is seen as an indication of potentially treasonous inclinations. Failing to pass one clearance makes it nearly impossible for a candidate to pass any such process in the future.
Because they are rewarded for "catches", investigators have an incentive to make candidates look as bad as they can - hence anything idiosyncratic or out of the ordinary is held under suspicion. This is reinforced by the fact that these investigators are not necessarily the most well educated people around - they only need to take a few month-long courses to qualify for their job.
As a result, the people who do make it through this process are often the more mediocre candidates, those who do not have the curiosity or drive to take risks, intellectual or professional.
The government, despite its grandiose rhetoric about hunting down terrorism, has no real incentive to change. When you are behind the fence, it is virtually impossible to fire you, which means that incompetence runs rampant. The fact that captured documents are being posted online for all the world to see is evidence of this.
I have a Masters in Arabic Linguistics from Georgetown. I am a US citizen. Alongside Arabic, I speak Farsi, Urdu, Spanish, and Chinese. I also work as a software developer developing machine learning technogy. I was turned down for a security clearance because I smoked marijuana in college, 8 years ago. I do not, and cannot work for the government.
Legal and cultural climates which encourage and incentivize innovation are relatively rare in human history and can easily disappear. To survive, they require the right mix of public curiosity, access to knowledge, economic vibrancy, and comfort with challenging social hiearchies. The simple fact is that it is easier for people to stick with the solutions they already have than to attempt innovation. The innovator faces not only the looming prospect of failure - after all, most innovations fail - but the opposition of the status quo, whose power rests on people sticking to the old way of doing things.
Traditionally, America has been a friendly climate to technological and scientific innovation for two reasons. First, although American culture has been staunchly anti-intellectual, this has been more than compensated for by its openness to immigrants from societies where such a stigma is not placed on academic achievement. Secondly, the American economy has been relatively open to recieving and implementing effective technological solutions. However, what happens when America becomes less friendly towards its foreigners, and when its foreigners find that there are better places to go? Moreover, what happens when America's corporate culture, compacent in their assumption that its ways will overtake the world, decides that its RnD departments no longer feed the bottom line? What happens when our legal climate provides discentives for innovation by punishing someone who stumbles across an idea which has previously been patented? What happens when security professionals are thrown in jail for discovering and publicizing flaws in some big corporation's software? What happens when an engineer with a doctorate, who spent 10 years in living conditions which could most charitably be described as monastic, finds he is making a fraction of the salary of some bullshit artist in marketing who happened to shake the right hands? Comfortable in its imperial hubris, America is telling its more curious and inquisitive citizens, "Thanks, but we won't be needing you anymore." Which is pretty much what every great civilization has announced before the inevitable.
In the scientific fields, America is competing with older civilizations such as India or China. Although they were remarkably advanced a millenium ago - India in the theoretical sciences such as algebra and formal linguistics, China in applied technology - they became complacent. The real power lay in the hands of beaurocrats, priests, and mandarins - the ancient equivalent of our lawyers, MBA's, and marketing executives - who announced that they knew all they needed to know. It was too late when Western imperialism taught them a bitter and humiliating lesson. These civilizations learned the hard way that giving up on scientific and technological innovation leads to weakness and eventually subjugation.
The simple fact is that, apart from limited and somewhat futile attempts to monitor terrorist activity online, the U.S. government has allowed the Internet to run its own course. Whether this stems from a policy of respect for freedom of speech or a simple inability to locate relevant information effectively - it is a little bit of both - the Internet works. The point has been brought up that China is pushing for more control in order to persecute religious and political dissidents, that the Arab world would use whatever control they had been given to make things difficult for Israel, that petty regimes the world over would use their control to silence any dissent. It is true that the influx of information threatens the party line that most citizenries are given - at least for those curious enough to look. How dangerous this really is to the worlds more secretive regimes is questionable - since the Internet tends to segregate itself along linguistic barriers (most of the world's people not knowing more than one language), the Clintonian fantasy of democracy and freedom spreading through every Ethernet cable will probably not happen. Instead, what we see is a slightly more anarchic version of the cultures we see in meatspace, with the same prejudices, fears, and aspirations. I think the real danger, if such a move is made, will be certain forms of censorship in the West. If control of the internet is handed over to regions of the world which have higher rates of petty corruption, it would be very, very easy for parties in the West - large corporations especially - to make their voices heard. A bribe here, a sugar-coated deal with some top official there, and then suddenly corporations can shut down file-sharing sites, blogs which are just a bit too critical of their product, or which publicize some piece of dirt they'd rather keep secret, you name it - as long as the site is dependent upon this country.
Join the club. I am a PhD Candidate studying Arabic and Computational Linguistics at Georgetown university. You would think that someone like me might be of great use to my country and government - remember that the government's lack of linguistic talent plays a large role in its failure in the war on terrorism and in the occupation of Iraq. Oh, also I speak Farsi, Spanish, and Chinese. I was turned down for a Top Secret Clearance because in the past I had smoked marijuana a few times - I got a letter saying that this was done in the interests of national security. Before this happened, the phone was ringing off the hook with offers. Now, I'm lucky if I can even get scumbag recruiters who might call every few months to return my calls after the first conversation - and this when I am the only person qualified for the job. I had a roomate who had a TSC. He is a high school dropout, he has habitually used drugs in the past, associated with drug dealers, attempted to commit credit card fraud on my landlord, and he threatened to kill me several times. The government trusts him, but I am a threat to national security. My experience has taught me that this administration and the intelligence community do not want to catch terrorists, and they do not want to protect American lives. They want to fight a culture war, in which civil liberties are eroded, homosexuals and foreigners are persecuted, and ordinary citizens live in fear of having their lives destroyed through a poorly designed database that has a high rate of "collateral damage." When I was getting the Clearance, I naively believed that it was my skills, abilities and accomplishments which would determine my eligibility. I only pray that this experience will not get in the way elsewhere. Do not trust these people. They do not care about you, and they do not want to protect you.