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High Security? New US Cybersecurity Arm Might Be Ready to Hire Stoners

Is the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center down? Maybe!
​Image: Flickr/​Evan

​The Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, America's new cybersecurity agency, needs to hire the very best experts if it's going to get ahead of malicious attackers trying to access US networks. The problem is that a lot of experts do some Very Bad—if not strictly illegal—things, like smoking pot or downloading music. Will the agency relax the policies that have prevented other agencies from scooping up talent?

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During a press conference held yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, center director Jane Harman noted that top-dollar corporate salaries make it tough for the government to retain experts, but she also alluded to another concern: illegal activity.

​Harman asked Lisa Monaco, chief counterterrorism adviser to the president, how the agency would respond to an applicant who had "incorrectly downloaded illegal music on their system," as an example. ​In response, Monaco stressed the importance of being honest on application forms and said that "something that's a crime is something that we're going to have to talk about."

​Monaco's comment is undeniably noncommittal, but it's exactly this ambivalent attitude toward illegal, but nonetheless widespread, activities among the ranks of cybersecurity experts that could indicate a willingness to ease up on some of the restrictions that have prevented other agencies from retaining people most familiar with how hackers operate.

"I think the whole system is going to need some sort of review"

In May of 2014, FBI Director James Comey said that he is tasked with hiring a competent cybersecurity force, but "some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview." FBI hiring policy precludes the hiring of anybody who's smoked pot in the last three years. Comey later backtracked and said he was JK LOLS about the whole weed thing, but his comments nonetheless indicate frustration with current hiring policies.

​​I asked Meg King, Strategic and National Security Advisor to the President and CEO of the Wilson Center, whether the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center would be considering applicants who get high, and her response was more positive.

​​"Well, [smoking marijuana] isn't illegal in every state," said King. "I think the whole system is going to need some sort of review if we really are going to attract the best and the brightest—I think it's something that should be reviewed."

​Little is currently known about the agency's scope besides that it's meant to streamline the intelligence analysis process between agencies—although it looks like there is some potential here for them to do some serious government surveillance with the help of new legislation and private companies. Its hiring policies are also a mystery, but it's possible that the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center could be staffed by chill-ass nerds who smoke pot and download tunes, pending a review of government hiring policies.