After Snowden, The NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge

[Demeter]

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/31/395829446/after-snowden-the-nsa-faces-recruitment-challenge


..."When I was a senior in high school I thought I would end up working for a defense contractor or the NSA itself," Swann says. Then, in 2013, NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a treasure-trove of top-secret documents. They showed that the agency's programs to collect intelligence were far more sweeping than Americans realized.

After Snowden's revelations, Swann's thinking changed. The NSA's tactics, which include retaining data from American citizens, raise too many questions in his mind: "I can't see myself working there," he says, "partially because of these moral reasons."

This year, the NSA needs to find 1,600 recruits. Hundreds of them must come from highly specialized fields like computer science and mathematics. So far, it says, the agency has been successful. But with its popularity down, and pay from wealthy Silicon Valley companies way up, agency officials concede that recruitment is a worry. If enough students follow Daniel Swann, then one of the world's most powerful spy agencies could lose its edge...

Someone like Daniel Swann is a fairly rare commodity. Hopkins is a big university, but its Information Security Institute will produce just 31 master's this year. Of those, only five are U.S. citizens — a requirement to work at the NSA. With similarly small numbers at other schools, how many Daniel Swanns are rejecting the agency because of the Snowden leaks?

HOW MANY MORAL PEOPLE ARE IN THE UNITED STATES?

NOT ENOUGH, I'M AFRAID...

[merrily]

1. My heart bleeds for the fucking NSA.

http://www.amazon.com/They-Know-Everything-About-Data-Collecting/dp/1568584520

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. I hope they get plenty of new recruits

...just like Edward Snowden.

[Renew Deal]

3. I think this demonstrates the lack of skilled workers in general to fill these positions

The US needs to identify, train, and retain recruits for these positions. It is a matter of national defense to be #1 in the fields that the NSA covers. They cannot allow the Chinese, Russians, and Israelis to have better trained people.

From the recruits perspective, the NSA is an elite cybersecurity/defense organization and a prized resume item.

[avebury]

7. It really does not matter how many qualified candidates that

the US can provide if young candidates have the impression that the NSA is just as interested in plying their trade within the US and against our own citizens. It is possible, given the direction our country has been going in with the rise of the Republican Party, Tea Party, Uber Conservative, the 1%ers, MIC, and so on that more and more people may look upon the NSA as just as much a threat to us as they are to outside forces. If they cannot keep us in a perpetual state of war somewhere in the world they have no place else to turn but within our own borders as evidenced with the militarization of our police forces.

[Renew Deal]

8. Money talks

Salaries need to be comparable or better.

[avebury]

9. Not everyone views money as the

number one priority in life.

[bemildred]

4. Yep.

The sort of guys they need will not accept the sort of restrictions and control that they require. So they get the "normal" ones, who produce normal software. You can't have it both ways, but boy we like to try.

Snowden seems to be the sort of guy they need, an admin type, not a coder, but you don't get that sort of personality without consequences. The computer is very literal minded and does not accept a good line of bullshit instead of working code.

[Sparhawk60]

5. This Gives Me Hope for America

I have always thought we could find plenty of brown-shirts right here in America, glad to see I was wrong.

[Blue_Tires]

6. Recruitment will bounce back in time...

Another issue is after Snowden, the background security checks are now much, much stricter...

[riderinthestorm]

10. The treatment of Snowden also has to be playing a part

hunted across the planet for whistleblowing would give many people a queasy stomach about working there.

The treatment of other previous employers who tried to work from within (fired and worse) and then the monumental hunt for Snowden who went public has to be hurting their recruitment even further.

Beyond the NSA's illegal programs, you have a crappy work place management.

No thanks.