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American federal investigators are having a hard time hiring computer-savvy staff, according to a memo from the Inspector General for the US Department of Justice.
"Even as it works to expand the ranks of its cybersecurity team, the department continues to face challenges recruiting and retaining highly qualified candidates to do this work," the memo [PDF] states.
Last year the FBI got the authorization and budget to hire 134 computer scientists for online investigations. We're told the agency could only find 82 people interested in working for Uncle Sam. As a result, five of the FBI's regional 56 Cyber Task Force teams don't have a computer specialist on hand.
Why are they having so much trouble?
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US Govt Just Can't Hire Enough Cyber-Sherlocks
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Thursday November 19 2015, @11:35PM
That's the least of it. The biggest problem is the chronic suspicion from the political hacks who manage the agencies. They're always worried you're going to rat them out, be the next Edward Snowden. They're also chronically suspicious of your competence. They are wont to demand the impossible, and when you tell them it can't be done, they don't know if you're giving it to them straight or you "could do it if you really wanted to" but you're just lazy, or maybe someone is paying you off, or you're one of those bullshit artists trying to cover up your incompetence.
And those are the good days. Where it gets really ugly is when they are trying to cover up their own incompetence. Much the same crap as above, but with additional bullying urgency, to keep you off balance. They love, love, love to slap "classified" on everything, even elementary school knowledge. "What's 2 + 2? Classified. Who was the 1st President of the United States? Classified." They will totally hamstring projects by keeping the members in the dark about things they should have been told, and cause failure. Not only does the right hand not know what the left is doing, none of the fingers know what any other finger is doing. They aren't interested in protecting national secrets near as much as covering up their mistakes and frauds, and they don't hesitate to abuse the hell out of the classification system for that end.
At least, that's what it was like working under a Republican administration. Rumsfeld's pushing for impossibly grand results from understaffed and overworked military agencies was pervasive. Many times, SEC employees turned up blatant insider trading and other criminal activities in the market, and just as they were about ready to take the offenders to court, the crony at the top would order them to stand down. Sit on it, and watch the statute of limitations run out. Any SEC employee who bucked that got fired. I heard moral was pretty low in the waning days of the Bush Administration. Presumably, things improved under Obama. But evidently the agencies still can't find people? What's the unemployment rate, still pretty high? Yeah.
You're never just an employee, you're an employee and a suspect.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 20 2015, @02:47AM
Just a particular case of "You're not a citizen, you are a suspect" then?
Otherwise, seems like institutionalized paranoia built on top of a cover-my-ass-is-top-priority bureaucracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford