Trove of Stolen Data Is Said to Include Top-Secret U.S. Hacking Tools

For better or worse, contractors are easier to hire and fire for the federal government. That gives them more budgetary flexibility. You can also hire people and companies that specialize in the specifics of the project quickly through established contracting channels with established reputations.

Contractors are also able to legally bypass red tape and bureaucracy required of federal employees. For instance if I was directly employed by one of my clients i would be severely limited in the toolchain that I use and I wouldn't even be allowed admin access on my development machine (despite having it on multiple servers which are orders of magnitude more sensitive). If I was their employee, every time I needed to install a java update I'd have to call up IT sit on hold and explain to them exactly why I need to install this update etc.. I've had it literally take a week of futzing around with bizarre errors (from the crazy policy settings and restrictions on the laptop) on hold with some poor schmuck at a national level helpdesk four time zones away who has zero experience with programming trying to get a dev-enviornment set up on a government laptop which would have taken literally an hour on a computer I have local admin access on. I would rather be waterboarded than do that again. Contracting and having our own rules saves literally unending amounts of pointless bullshit. Many things would probably never get completed internally because of situations like this. Of course those contractor advantages cut both ways when considering security.

In OP's situation I'm not sure him being a contractor makes any difference. Either kind of employee can take a usb stick home and transfer stuff to a compromised PC. A contractor or employee may have gotten their clearance a long time ago and unless they have some kind of regular unannounced random inspection of their home you'd never know if they were a hoarder. And if they never caused or were involved in a security incident in the past there would probably be very little desire to bother shaking them down. I'd say problems in this category may be worse internally. I've met many husks of people in government positions who have been there for decades and are completely unemployable. What's worse is they can't be fired easily like a contractor so as long as they show up sober 9-5 they never leave.

Not saying it's a good situation. The contractor knowingly and clearly broke laws, policies, and rules. I annually have to take record keeping and security courses and quizzes to maintain access to the network. I am sure the contractor implicated here had much more stringent requirements than I have due to his clearance level. Thus this guy's screwed, his company is screwed too. legally too. Lord knows this guy can't pull strings at the DoJ to save his ass like some people from recent memory.

Every time someone points out the "why'd they give a clearance to X person" argument, I point out that there are close to a million people with security clearances. No screening system is perfect, but for something being ran by the government it is pretty damn good.

Maybe the NSA needs less James Bond characters and more engineers.