[CALUG] [JOB OPENING] System Administrator at Intelesys Corp

[James Ewing Cottrell 3rd]

junekis at comcast.net wrote:

>I have a beef myself, but not with companies that hire "cleared" people.
>
>A clearance is a legitimate job skill requirement - like a degree. You wouldn't expect employers to get you a BS in Computer Science if you didn't know how to program just so you could be hired as a programmer.
>
Good in theory. But in practice, since one can not clear oneself, or 
even pay for the government to clear them,  We are forced to go through 
companies to get cleared.

>Or would you?
>
>No, my beef is with the whole concept of "cleared" people
>
>The clearance process focuses on screening out "sleeper" agents by making sure you didn't sneak into the country and assume someone elses ID. And incidentally they screen for commies, nuts and felons.
>
>But once a person is "cleared" there is little continued attention. 
>
>Yet every major spy scandal in the last 40 years has involved employees who had compartmentalized clearances who simply were bribed to sell out. No one thought to question GS-13s driving mercedes and living in $2m homes because conspicuous consumption is a celebrated virtue in our society.
>  
>
Well, yeah, external security is relatively easy. It's a lot harder to 
watch the people you trust.

>The KBG never had any trouble discovering the technical details of our fighters or bombers  - they just bough the plans.
>
>One begins to suspec that the *real* target of security clearances is the American public.
>  
>
Interesting point. Yeah, the whole "war on terror" is pretty much the 
perpetual war described in Orwell's 1984. We're not really serious about 
homeland security, it's just an excuse to trample our rights via 
abominations like the Patriot Act. Orwell had "Goldberg" as the 
bogeyman. We have Osama. Well, he got the Semitic part right, even if 
used a Jew instead of an Arab.

>DHS and the DoD classify programs primarily to keep the public from discovering how incompetently our defenses are managed, and especially how outrageously expensive all that custom-built but technically obsolete equipment is.
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>Of all government agencies, the DHS got the lowest marks from the GAO on computer security last year, in spite of all those employee clearances.
>  
>
Well, one reason is because they use a lot of Windows stuff.

>All they are hiding is their own mismanagement and malfeasance.
>IMHO of course...
>