This is a thing you can only say if you know very little about the talent pipeline for actual espionage technology in the USG, which: they do not have a lot of problems there. Lots of people don't share your precise values about espionage or about espionage technology, and the real jobs in this field are extremely high-status. There's competition to get them.

The USG does not want plausible deniability about this. They actively recruit on elite engineering campuses over it. It is super fucking interesting work and candidates compete for the opportunity to do it. If you think otherwise, you're in a filter bubble.

There is this consistent myth by the most radical faction of people in the country. They are only the most radical 5 or 10%, but they seem to believe their anti-nationalist, anti-government, anti-American views are much more widely share than they are. The vast majority of American's view working in the defense industry, espionage, etc as a good thing.

There are ways in which it clearly is a good thing. I don't have my head around how people could oppose CNE operations aimed at counterproliferation, for example. But obviously, it's morally fraught work (fraught, meaning complicated, a minefield, not meaning "damnable") and I don't have the stomach (or, really, the talent) for it.

Theres a spectrum too it. Helping design fighter jets and missiles? Yes that has to be done with the idea that the weapons you are designing for national security can and most likely will be used in such a way that will cause harm. However in espionage or cyber security, those are almost all pure good. You are protecting information or attaining information.

The main myth though is that somehow there is this idea that someone working as a booze allen contractor for the NSA or CIA is going to now be blackballed by everyone out of disgust. Most people will see it as good, and most companies just want talent and dont actually care about what areas people are in.

Working in actual CNE as an employee at NSA has for a very long time been an effective calling card in software security roles as well.

Where can one find these people online? As they are seemingly not on HN, and as a European with similar views, it would be fun to get closer to them.

>> If you think otherwise, you're ... [elided]

Yellow card.

I don't really care in this instance, because the information I'm relaying here is obviously, verifiably correct. It's not like, a persuasion challenge for me here. I'm just relating basic facts.

Flippant again. Nice.

If you have something to say, I think you should say it. This is vacuous. I understand why it's unpopular to relate the fact that applications for serious surveillance/espionage CNE work at NSA are competitive, and that the USG is very open about soliciting those applications. It remains a fact. Feel free to challenge me on that; we can go deeper.

What I'm not going to do is write you an apology for confronting you with that information.

> I understand why it's unpopular to relate the fact that applications for serious surveillance/espionage CNE work at NSA are competitive, and that the USG is very open about soliciting those applications.

And I'm not challenging you on that, at all. I actually believe you are correct because you typically provide very thoughtful answers from a position of authority and usually bring evidence to back your assertions. In this case, you're not. Your comments are childish and makes your position way less believable and hence why I'm pushing you.

> It remains a fact.

Just because you say it's a fact doesn't mean it is. The fact that you've done nothing but say "I know its a fact so therefore it is" doesn't help your position either.

> What I'm not going to do is write you an apology for confronting you with that information.

Yeesh. Chill out. I never asked for an apology. Your discourse is belittling and unproductive.

> and will probably look like a blemish on your CV when you eventually need to get a new job.

Not necessarily, especially in the private sector. It's hard to justify not hiring an excellent employee because he or she worked for a company you don't like. Especially if the hiring panel is composed by >1 person.

A lot of these places already have massive government contracts with their own management structures.

So the plan is to also make some of them federal employees, ostensibly helping to oversee those contracts? Seems like a conflict of interest...

>Remember that in just 3 years this will stop helping you to get hired, and will probably look like a blemish on your CV when you eventually need to get a new job.

The worst part about this entire political is that Dems are most likely gonna win, and everyone will just move on.

Im really hoping that Trump lives long enough to actually stage a coup and tank the US economy so hard that things like working for this or DOGE actually do start to matter.

There’s no company with a policy to refuse, but there are plenty of individual hiring managers and interviewers with personal opinions or bias.

Right… because those definitely don’t already assist three-letter agencies and the presence of the largest tech companies on the planet on your CV will definitely somehow become a net negative because uh, orange man bad? I assume that’s what the 3 year window is about?