FBI director: Zero tolerance pot policy kills our ability to hire cyber war programmers

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I am just surprised that the FBI is looking for another 2000 people to fight Cyber Crime, don't we have enough people working for the government, maybe the ones he is looking for are pot smokers that can roll on their dealers so they can make more arrest. this sound fishy to me for them to come right out and say this.

a reply to: ScientiaFortisDefendit

I see there humor but it is based on a stupid stereotype. That kind of stereotyping gets annoying to me, I have just seen way too much of it lately.

Allowing openly frequent cannabis users in sensitive work environments will not change anything. No different that a frequent caffeine or nicotine user.

I think you would be surprised at how many 'potheads' live and eat healthy food. Your silly munchy, junk food craving cannabis user is really just a stereotype.

I never said anything remotely close to that.

Go to healthy vegetarian style restaurant or market and you will run into way more pot heads than you will in the junk food aisle at the grocery store or the candy store. That stereotype just is not true, despite how many people believe it.

Zero tolerance policies, random drug tests are all just a means of thought control.

I rarely succumb to the munchies, I do get them at times, the lion in my gut sometimes speaks loudly, but it does anyway with or without.
I would bet most potheads are skinny as a rake, or should I say lean and fit.

Saying that: pot-->computers is = to cheese-->pizza.

It does not make a person dumb while under the influence, there is no way any skilled job cannot be done while under the influence of cannabis.

The stupid pothead is a myth.

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I see this as a tacit admission by the Feds that they have in fact lost the War on Drugs ... and that they are rapidly losing the War on Free Information.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Same here in Scotland, IT pro's very rarely get drug tested even though you a working for huge multinationals & I have even worked offshore. Been working in the IT sector for 20 years and have only been tested once & I was given fair warning.
I think the reason why so many high functioning IT pro's use cannabis is that IT pro's have very active brains, I know from my own experience that it doesn't so much as slow down my brain processes but I can be much more focused when smoking regularly.
It's also a great tool for creative thinking and that comes in very useful at looking for different ways to hack into a system. People look at IT as very logical and non creative but you would be very surprised how creative the IT industry is, we are dreamers and creative thinkers so it goes hand in hand that we would smoke cannabis.

Polygraphs are pure bunk of crud....
a reply to: Cyprex

Well, OP? I think I see a great situation in society to draw one of those new lines which will, as legalization progresses, necessarily HAVE to be drawn.

Where IS the line? Agent? Support tech? Lab worker? Cyber Warrior?

First, I think we need to ask another question, and perhaps the more important one. Who would the policy change impact, if not ALL new hires? I'm 100% against that, by the way.

If we draw the line between those with independent (key word) armed powers of arrest vs. those within the support structure of the FBI who could never, independently, carry off a catastrophic misjudgment in the routine course of duty? It sounds workable. It won't even really be much choice if or when the feds make a legal and not just policy shift on the underlying issue itself.

However, for those who can radically alter or even bring to an end, the life of anyone they come into contact with in routine business? I'm not for any loosening of standards until or unless there is a 100% change of law and those who would be tasked with enforcing it, didn't come on-board in a state of violating it personally. A Principle thing..lol

That crosses too many other lines of wrong, for the future responsibilities of an armed agent, IMO.

Now we're getting somewhere...

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

That crosses too many other lines of wrong, for the future responsibilities of an armed agent, IMO.

Kind of a shame this observation wasn't the post immediately following the OP.

Considering the volume of posts in the Posse Comitatus forum, one can only imagine the outcry if a stoned federal SWAT team broke down the wrong door and machine-gunned an innocent family eating breakfast on a Saturday morning.

a reply to: Snarl

How would that be any different that a SWAT team high on caffeine and nicotine?


One can easily argue that caffeine can make a person jumpy and possibly trigger happy.

a reply to: DietJoke
Not sure I'm following you, but if this leads to complete legalization of pot then they could buy it at any corner shop and bust other still illegal drugs

It's pretty stupid that this whole thing is still even an issue. The majority of the government leaders are old and out of touch. It's going to become legal eventually....either with some more years of fighting for it, or by just letting some more years pass to get folks who grew up in the last 30 or 40 years in to office.

a reply to: jrod

One can easily argue that caffeine can make a person jumpy and possibly trigger happy.

Good counterpoint!! Might have been an underlying cause in too many past incidents already ... and we'll never know.

I find it funny that politicians never have to take drug tests or have their credit ratings checked to get their jobs but they expect everyone else to. I find the drug tests invasive and annoying. And I don't do drugs. It's just another way to take away my freedoms. What I do in my off time is no ones business but my own.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

I dunno.

They let them drink. I'm sure some have a beer at lunch.

Not many stories of FBI agents loosin' their crap and shooting randoms in the street now are there?

I assume neither are ones involving computer programmers who got high and ruined a country by shutting down their telecom or something like that.

So, yeah..I don't really like that argument Bugs!



~Tenth

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
So even the head of the FBI is admitting that pot law is stupid, and is hurting the agency.

Source

FBI director James Comey said this week that the bureau may be forced to change its drug policy because the U.S. could not find enough programmers who did not use marijuana to fight cyber crime.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Comey told the White Collar Crime Institute’s annual conference on Monday that it was going to be difficult to fill the 2,000 new jobs that Congress had authorized this year.

“I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview,” Comey explained.

This guy seems to get it. He continues:

“And so I believe… that we have to have — we on the federal side — a whole of government approach. We got to figure out how can we support you,” Comey continued. “You can’t arrest your way out of this problem, but arresting — for us, focusing on the international trafficking organizations that are flooding the market — is a huge part of the answer.”

I wonder if he'll get any flack from upper management regarding this bit above. He's speaking out of turn considering the Federal Government has done nothing at all about the issue. Other than say, they won't be doing anything at all, see Colorado and Washington.

Now this conversation isn't about people smoking pot, or wanting to smoke pot, it's about how stupid prohibition laws may in fact bu hurting America's ability to fight legitimate cyber crime.

Another nail in the coffin for draconian laws. I'm glad they will be changing the practice internally, but it still begs the question:

If Federal Agencies are having to do this, effectively break their own laws to help enforce the good ones, why hasn't the Federal Government started looking into this more seriously?

~Tenth

Colorado and Washington has nothing at all to do with the Fed really. These are state laws. It is still illegal federally, they have just chosen, at least for the time being that they are not going to go after anyone for this. But they could if they wanted to.

a reply to: VoxVirtus

While they certainly may not have anything to do with the fed their impression and effect on the feds enforcement is dually noted. That means something.

a reply to: VoxVirtus

I think you misunderstood.

Colorado and Washington have everything to do with it, because it now forces the Fed to come to a very important decision.

They have 3 choices.

1. Do nothing.
2. Enforce the Federal Laws.
3. Change the Federal laws to line with state's wishes.

Since they've chosen to do #1 so far, my question was doesn't these sorts of events, like the FBI coming out against these draconian federal policies, make it more likely that the Fed will change to Option 3 in the future?

~Tenth

L O L

no

R O T F L O L

seriously

so we have a problem
and we can't hire the best in the bizz cause they are drug users
because we legalized the drug

hmmm