Low government pay costing us money

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/05/09/Pentagon-s-New-Army-Convention-Hackers

By David Francis, The Fiscal Times
May 9, 2014

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In March, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that DOD would add 6,000 warriors to the Pentagon’s cyber unit, tripling its size by 2016, to fight this war. Hagel also accounted that DOD would invest $5 billion in 2015 to bolster cyber defenses.

The Department of Defense is on its way to building a modern cyber force," Hagel said. He then admitted that DOD’s capabilities are behind those of its adversaries, saying that DOD’s reliance on the Internet “outpaces our cyber security.”

“DOD will maintain an approach of restraint to any cyber operations outside of U.S. government networks. We are urging other nations to do the same," Hagel said.

Hagel’s announcement comes at a perilous time. The United States and China are in what amounts to a cyber Cold War, and the Pentagon is falling behind; China already has legions of hackers who have been training since they were young. It also comes in the wake of the Edward Snowden debacle, an incident that showed that U.S. state secrets can be stolen by low-level contractors with a vendetta against the way the DOD, CIA or the NSA do business.

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Jerry Ferguson, co-Leader of Baker Hostetler's national Privacy and Data Protection team, says the government has to rely on private contractors because of compensation limits within the federal government.

“One of the issues that the Snowden event raises and illustrates is the heavy reliance that the Defense Department has historically placed on private contractors in building its cyber army” Ferguson said. “There’s a practical reason for this; private industry can pay more than government pay scales often permit.”

“The reality is that the people who have the skill sets needed by a cyber warrior….the people with those skill sets are highly in demand by private industry, Ferguson added.

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