This is equally true of successes as well as challenges.
I did some cool, very impactful stuff in that job. I will go to jail for a long, long time if I ever go into detail about it.
I know cleared psychologists are a thing. I never tried to speak with one but I’m told demand is high, and the ones out there are typically very oversubscribed.
I may be a bad counter example to this article. I never had to cope with super severe depression or crisis, or conops that would bring me a ton of personal crisis.
I just see a commonality in struggling with not being able to talk about it. Work is too big a part of my life to not be able to discuss it freely. That did cost me something, personally. I’m glad it didn’t cost me anything as dear as what it cost the people in the original article.
On pondering this, I suppose everyone with a hobby has this same lacking. For that matter, anyone with a mind that contains unique thoughts has the the same lacking. A desire for comradery seems pretty universal.
That said, not being able to talk about it and not being allowed to talk about it is quite different!
The government has spent centuries doing spycraft and has a budget in the billions.
This is the tactic used when journalist Gary Webb started reporting on the USA involvement with selling crack to Americans so they could fund Contra insurgents in Nicaragua.
They did this so well that other news organizations turned on the journalist.
I could easily imagine the USA not wanting to patch holes so they have access to the systems and these experts know this.
Many examples of deliberate weakening are documented, especially with the "export approved" stuff that we sell to our allies.
This problem goes beyond just encryption, and also involves deliberate data leaking (with plausible deniability).
So yes, you don't need to imagine it at all -- the NSA works to create and maintain access to "everything everywhere."
The work I did absolutely had positive impact on the world.
People rush to criticize and write off working in the defense sector, but it can be a very rewarding place to work. There are absolutely problems in that sector - bad management and regulatory capture being primary among them. (Ultimately, those are why I left.)
It’s hard to judge accurately from the outside. That’s the nature of classified work: by definition, you can’t know what you’re getting yourself into until you’ve jumped with both feet.
Is that what they say?
And that isn't even the half of it.
People tend to forget that the US government will pay out the wazoo to achieve things that are one-time successes.
Consider things like Operation IVY BELLS, or Project Azorian.
Now consider that same mindset applied to a long term investment. The possibilities are pretty limitless.
I was a part of the world's largest illegal operation in history and again I promise you no one gives a s**.
Facts.
Source: me - TS/SCI, several interesting SAPs, contractually bound to not say a word about the details til death.
Have you noticed the current executive administration in the US?
Do not think we aren't catching on to this kind of nonsense.
It's possible that their particular job was, as far as they know, doing good things according to most moral frameworks.
I have strong doubts that everyone who kills people by clicking on them on a computer screen thinks that what they are doing is wholly compatible with their personal moral framework. Presumably, some of those people feel very guilty about what they do.
This is about network security, defending against cyber attacks. You may or may not agree that we should have people doing that, but conflating it with imagined nonsense like this is counterproductive.
I am absolutely not saying that is what’s happening here, suicide of folks put in stressful situations is to be taken seriously. But like… c’mon guy, surely this exact premise has been a direct-to-Amazon-Video release.
For all the same reasons - Don't Talk to HR