The FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The FBI Says It Can't Find Hackers to Hire Because They All Smoke Pot (2014)

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70 pointstosh42 comments

When I was in college, I interviewed for an internship with the CIA. The 2012 interview was for a 2014 summer internship, and they told me I couldn’t smoke pot between now and then. Given how many talented coders I knew at Stanford who had smoked pot at least once in a year, that seemed insane to me.

Instead, I went to work at Apple where people practically smoked in the office.

What if we, like, made a phone that was entirely glass? That would be so fucking cool, man.

...inside joke or something?

No, he is exhibiting humor.

Given everything that we know the CIA does and has done, why did this seem like a respectable job to you? I assume you wouldn't work for organized crime.

EDIT> There's a darker part of me that would enjoy working for an intelligence agency, but I acknowledge that it's not a better part of my nature. Even if you aren't doing the torturing, or assassination, you're directly aiding the organization that is.

You are funding that organization with your taxes. Don't tell me you have no choice. You always have a choice.

The reason they can't hire is because it is illegal and opens you up to be compromised. It's that simple. Drug dealers can put you, your family, and work in a shitty situation because they need more money because of something happening to them.

The risk is too high for law enforcement. Once Congress changes the law they won't give a shit.

FBI is shooting itself in the foot with these sort of policies. I can understand not wanting to hire someone smoking weed on the way to an interview, but in your spare time? What about all the law enforcement staff who abuse alcohol? Alcohol's been proven to be a more dangerous substance but Congress and the scheduling system are still opposite of the data.

They act like hiring those who occasionally partake in cannabis is somehow the equivalent of the army laxing physical requirements to enlist.

Well it's against the (Federal) law, right? And it's your job to enforce the law. Pot bans may not make sense, but it's tricky if you start openly ignoring a law. I mean it's not like they get people's personal data without a warrant or anything. :)

[deleted]

Damn I want some of whatever you've been smoking.

They have moral requirements. Pot is made by criminal enterprises and by purchasing it you're supporting them.

So take it off the banned list. Legalize it. Take the power & profits away from the criminal element. Stop wasting money sending otherwise perfectly normal people to prison for years for having a god damn plant. The whole reason cannabis is on the list in the first place is because Harry J Anslinger was a racist prick.

Ain't nobody hurting you by smoking pot. How many people drink every day and kill innocent people in car crashes? Nobody is OD'ing on pot either, given that it's physically impossible. Nobody is out committing robberies to get money to buy pot. More people have been killed by Uber's robot cars than will ever be killed by smoking pot on their couch at home.

In case you didn't know, the FBI has zero legislative power... They have absolutely nothing to do with legalization of anything, and a law enforcement branch that picks and chooses which laws it enforces is a breath away from a police state.

So, get off your high horse, leave the poor feds alone, and start leading rallies against the real bad guys in Congress.

Where did I suggest that the FBI do anything? But I wouldn't go so far as to think of them as the "poor Feds"

No argument from me on the people in Congress, they forgot that they're supposed to work for the people long ago. but I'm afraid that I don't think it will matter who is in there, if I'm being honest about it. You're not going to get a room full of a bunch of old rich white people to agree on anything #1, but the real problem is money. I hate to use a sound byte from the talking heads on a 24 hr cable news channel, but we really do 'need to get the money out of politics' -- anything short of that is pissing in the wind.

Weed kills motivation, hopes and dreams, and limits potential. This is true, but not universally for everyone. Some people truly do function better stoned, even perpetually as many hackers apparently are.

Numerous studies suggest clearly that long-term marijuana use reduces IQ.

Perhaps in the future we'll have customized DNA-derived profiles that accurately tell whether someone is better doing no weed, lots of weed, some weed, and so on and so forth for all chemicals. We all have unique chemical makeups, after all.

Some background: My father was an extensively published pharmaceutical (toxicology, pharmacology, brain expert) academic researcher. Drugs are entirely about dosage. The logic applies here.

FBI policy may be antiquated but does exist for a good reason. Perhaps that reason needs refinement at a societal level, through technological progress.

I do expect this comment to get downvoted. HN'ed.

You know your audience, well: they supplied the downvotes, but no contrary bibliography.

What can be asserted without a bibliography can be dismissed without a bibliography.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=marijuana+IQ+loss+studi...

>Numerous studies suggest clearly that long-term marijuana use reduces IQ.

https://www.leafly.com/news/health/marijuana-and-iq-studies

This is such a tired argument when alcohol is legal, far more toxic of a substance, far more addictive, and it actively kills people daily. People can and should make decisions for themselves about what they put in their bodies.

It’s natural to balk at doing drugs. It’s harmful, however, to talk about weed without comparing it to harder substances, especially when it has been a prime reason for imprisoning people for decades. Even if weed is physiologically harmful at all, prohibition is socially a crippling disease.

I know a lot of computer science folk who could do with trading a few IQ points (in plentiful supply) for some of the other more positive side effects it provides.

Anything that provides happiness can kill motivation, hopes, and dreams.

Whether it's weed, alcohol, harder drugs, gambling, or even video games like DoTA and WoW.

Obviously if someone is high at work, that's a problem. Same as someone being drunk, or playing games at work. But what we do in our own time is our own business.

Why is it obvious that someone being high at work is a problem? We're not all airline pilots, neurosurgeons, and bomb techs.

Anyone who goes after weed as being the "life killer" before even making a casual mention to alcohol can usually be safely dismissed as moralizing.

Almost as stupid as trying to hire hackers that will agree to never consume caffeine.

> I don't want young people to use marijuana. It's against the law. We have a three-year ban on marijuana. I did not say that I'm going to change that ban. I said I have to grapple with the change in my workforce.

Do I think pot should be illegal because it already is illegal, and I'm appealing to an existing authority, or do I have a concrete argument as to why it should be illegal? Why should the opinion of any one man carry such weight for any reason other than the content of that man's opinion?

Making pot legal is the simplest way to solve the problem, because it turns an issue that needs to be solved into a non-issue. What are the consequences of pot legalization that are unbearable for this man?

"this man" is a cog in the machine, not the person who gets to decide what policy is. Because there is no such single person, it's a matter of laws passed by Congress.

While true, I think it is also too easy for any one cog to "forget" to oil itself at the start of the day.

>Making pot legal is the simplest way to solve the problem

It's getting there slowly.

This seems to highlight the ever present disparity between culture/society and laws that are on the books, and this is just another expression of it.

Hopefully the FBI has relaxed such standards since this piece was published in 2014, but I doubt it.

It's not up to the FBI, it's up to the DEA and FDA. The FBI has to follow federal law and as long as that law says cannabis is a schedule I controlled substance there's nothing they can do about it.

It’s always up to law-enforcement, which laws they want to enforce.

Some laws are harder to enforce than others too. That’s why people drive around my town with really loud engines and the cops never do anything about it.

There are plenty of laws that the FBI does not enforce within the realm of white-collar crime.

Well, obviously the FBI can't encourage its employees to smoke pot, but unless there's a federal regulation on drug testing, the FBI isn't forced to drug test it's employees.

The so-called "cybersecurity experts" main task in the FBI is probably running forensics on narcotics traffickers' devices and data. Using illegal drugs would be a conflict of interest.

I'm not sure that I totally agree, but this is the first new interesting point I've heard on this subject since this article originally came out, well done.

Is it really just pot? Theirs the dress code, the location, the secrecy, the bureaucracy, etc. The entire culture of the FBI is the polar opposite of typical hacker culture.

Hacker culture in the mainstream workforce doesn’t exist, it’s SV and VC culture. Free food and casual dress doesn’t change that. The word hacker is thrown around a lot, as in the title of this site, but like this site it’s just a name.

It's not just sv, I would include most tech driven companies. Microsoft and Amazon come to mind.

(2014)

[[ "I am absolutely dead set against using marijuana," he said at the hearing, "I don't want young people to use marijuana. It's against the law. We have a three-year ban on marijuana. I did not say that I'm going to change that ban. I said I have to grapple with the change in my workforce." ]]

How can you be American and be "against" someone else's lifestyle? You're missing the entire point of Liberty and freedom and why we have that statue in New York.

Even if it were harmful, and it isn't, their life is not yours to live. Their happiness is not yours to dictate.. all real Americans understand this don't we? The fight is insanity.

Put em all to Death, am i right!

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