Letter to the editor
This is in response to an FCW.com survey question that asked "What
is the primary obstacle to improving information security at federal agencies?"
Mr. Michael Huggins (March 8 comment) has a valid point. At the upper levels of security, it
is much more profitable to join the Beltway Bandits than it is to be employed
by the government.
To a lesser extent, that is also true of the working engineers and technical
staff. I admit to being naive about the system, but when you have what {italics}
appears {end italics} to be so many government jobs being set up to go to
outside sources, then you see senior officials joining that or a related
firm.
And that brings us to the comment by Mr. Carnahan (March 7). It boils down to politics. The federal government is a large multiheaded
beast, with each head wanting its way.
But the politicking does not stop there — it extends all the way to
the local level. For example, a highly qualified person was not given the
job because the person in command did not like engineers and stated that
no engineer would hold a network job. Instead, a proven lesser-qualified
person holding a nontechnical degree was placed in charge.
Politics and money to be made — as long as that takes precedence over
getting the job done right, none of the other problems mean much.
Name withheld by request