“We have too many cellphones. We’ve got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”
― Ray Bradbury
My hate for those people is palpable and visceral.
Got to make it even easier for the Russian hackers to manipulate us.
#1 reason they’re eliminating the position: Obama created it in 2009
#2 makes it easier for their Russian friends
#3 they’re incompetent fucks
Not to excuse anything that the shitgibbon does, but losing the “White House Coordinator for [SUBJECT]” is probably not a massive blow to [SUBJECT]. This is a person whose job it is to go to meetings with other, smarter people who are actually doing something with [SUBJECT] and report back to anyone in the White House who is interested in [SUBJECT].
So it’s not like the NSA is going to stop caring about cyber-security, or that the Air Force Cyber Command is closing down, or even that the Bureau of Fish and Wildlife Management is going to fire whatever IT security staff they might have on-hand. It just means that no one at the White House is going to be able to report on their activities at a moment’s notice.
And let’s be honest, if they had staffed this job, he or she would be just be wasting tax-payer money. They’d be the most underutilized person there, and I think we can all agree that there are already a LOT of contenders for that title.
But no one’s actually DOING anything about cybersecurity. I’m skeptical that these other, smarter people are still around. They have all that money budgeted for it and nothing’s been spent still, is that right? At this point I’m pretty sure the GOP is cool with it because Russian hacking and meddling will only benefit them for the 2018 elections.
Thousands of government staffers and contractors have full-time jobs doing stuff about cyber security. Lots of things are being done.
I have no idea if they are the right things or efficient things or even constructive things. But there are THINGS being done. There’s just no one at the White House whose job description is to coordinate the efforts across agencies… except for the NSC senior directors who have that same job description.
Well, the money was spent on the NSA careerist who held that spot until a couple weeks back; she’s now back at Fort Meade, working on… cyber security. The money allocated was to pay the salary of a single person, not a staff or a program. Presumably that money will be repurposed for more important White House needs.
[Insert joke about “more important WH needs” here]
Ah, I think I’m remembering the money as much higher than it actually is. I just hope whatever we actually ARE doing is enough to make the elections as fair as possible (gerrymandering, difficult voter registration, ID requirements, etc, notwithstanding.)
Huge caveat that it’s the Daily Mail, the least reliable of all the major UK papers.
Profiles in Cowardice: Growing a Spine Months After You’re Fired
Damn, I had forgotten all about this loser.
Asshole. He played along with it all too long to get redemption now.
That communicatioms pipeline is absolutely crucial to strategic planning and keeping things on the radar. Without liasons that can sum things up like that to executive leadership, projects wither and die with no support. We call it sponsorship in project management and it’s even more important than technical aspects. Just sayin’.
Agreed. Plus, in Washington, if you don’t have someone in your department that is tasked with reporting back to Congress/Executive Branch on a very regular basis you risk being forgotten about, or worse, having your very existence questioned. Suddenly funding is drying up, staff and other resources reassigned, and by the end of the next budget cycle you’re down to a dozen people in the basement of some old federal building using folding tables for desks and riding the elevator up two floors just to be able to use the restroom.
I guess Gina Haspel is actually winning. She’s been confirmed as the new CIA director.
Once more, with feeling, fuck the GOP
I wish everyone who votes for her the ‘pleasure’ of experiencing the efficacy of the ‘enhanced interrogation’.
The best people are not always the ones which rise to the top.
Six Democrats voted yes.