U.S. Investment Immigration focuses on local news in the United States: According to a report by the "Central News Agency" on the 14th, former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden's revelations about the U.S. government's surveillance program have shocked U.S. intelligence officials. Now, the U.S. National Security Agency has chosen a sensitive time to streamline 90% of its system administrators. Reports indicate that this may be a follow-up effect that even Snowden did not anticipate.
According to reports, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander stated last week at a cybersecurity conference at Fordham University in New York that nearly all of the 1,000 system administrators at the NSA would be laid off. Alexander said: "Perhaps we have not acted quickly enough, but the NSA is cutting about 90% of its system administrators."
Additionally, according to The Washington Post, many of these system administrators, like Snowden in the past, are employees of NSA contracting companies. Alexander hopes to move more system administration tasks away from NSA internal computer servers to be executed in the cloud.
Alexander stated: "We are having employees perform data transfers, maintain cybersecurity, and other tasks that perhaps machines are better suited for."
He said: "We may move all these tasks to the cloud, which would reduce the number of system administrators and allow them to perform other work." Reports indicate that this move aims to prevent more 'Snowdens' from emerging. NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines stated that the NSA and other intelligence agencies "have been preparing for layoffs for some time."
She also admitted that since Snowden revealed classified information to The Washington Post and The Guardian, the NSA has accelerated the pace of layoffs. However, she stated that it is unclear which positions will be eliminated, and it is also unclear whether these employees will be reassigned to other positions or directly laid off.