..who has a track record in this area.

On the other, we have @ioerror, The malware monster!, and @tqbf who are all well known security experts and...wait..who?

We were somewhat specialized, doing HPC work at a Major East Coast University but lots of other Linux skills. Due to the size of our university, we paid fairly well but HPC is a relatively small market that really does require a wide skillset (we also offered web hosting, database hosting, application installs, etc.). I couldn't get much coaching from HR as they had no idea what we were doing, and IT management had no idea what we were doing either, so we just kept using the same basic job posting every time something came up. A few hires we never filled because we were way too picky (I'll admit that much), but others applying for jobs just seemed to be throwing their resumes around wherever they could and hoping that the collection of buzzwords in their resume matched the collection in the posting.
It didn't help that HR was run by a bunch of nitwits that outsourced the online HR process to a company that couldn't give you a nice URL to a specific job posting. You had to go to a site, enter the job code, then you could see it. Then you had to create an account and then upload your resume. How the people spewing resumes everywhere did it, I have no idea. But I'm sure we missed out on a lot of candidates because it was difficult to find the job, let alone apply for it.

Of the people I did hire, most were really good and worked out well. I made candidates meet with my team and other IT teams just to chat and see what they thought of each other, and they reciprocated and asked my team to interview their candidates.

Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.

You're not aware of how the Senate operates. I don't see the House willing to negotiate on any of this. Does their proposed budget include cuts in NSA funding or restrictions on how their funds may be used? If not, then I'm not sure why you're putting the blame on the Senate.

The president has no bills to sign. The House is busy trying to repeal ACA, and whatever should be coming out of the Senate is blocked since every single bill requires a 2/3 majority as they're instantly filibustered. I don't see Democrats doing the filibusters. And before you say "well yeah, Democrats did it too", they did not. This clearly isn't a 'both sides are bad' issue.

They've ground government to a halt. The House is also the group that's supposed to write the budget. Obama makes his proposal and signs whatever comes out, but it's the House that originates funding bills and can put whatever restrictions they want on the NSA.

The Republicans are in charge and they haven't done a thing about the NSA. No reduction in budget, no oversight changes, nothing.

Can't e-mail people on AOL or Yahoo anymore, and anyone on those services can't sent to a mailing list.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 clearly gives it the right to operate a postal service and create and maintain roadways to carry the mail on.

http://geekdoctor.blogspot.com...

Uhm. No?

I don't believe her for a number of reasons I consider valid:

1) little evidence to back up her statements, with the promise of more evidence if you apparently buy the book
2) the evidence she did provide doesn't match with what those of us that know technology would consider credible (i.e. wiping out text by touching the trackpad)
2a) if she knew she was being targeted, why continue using technology that she knew could be tracked? Why not go with a laptop with wifi disabled or a plain 'ol typewriter?
3) why hasn't this happened to other reporters? There are others that have done similar reporting yet weren't targeted.
4) the press usually don't accept covert warnings like that (c.f. Woodward and Bernstein)
5) and it goes back to my comment on 'why would the government target her laptop in such a manner that they'd tell her they were watching then do nothing else'. Was she audited by the IRS? Was she followed by the FBI? Was her phone tapped?

Lacking answers to those points, I'm forced to go with a rather time-honored method of selling books: the older form of clickbait. "You won't believe what happened when this reporter tried to investigate Benghazi!"

Exactly. There's only so much telephone pole space (or underground conduit).

Government (or really a quasi-public company) owns the last mile. Vendors compete to provide the content. You pay the government X dollars per month to cover the cost of upgrade and maintenance of the fiber coming to your house, and then you choose from Verizon/Comcast/TWC and the packages/bandwidth you select.

In practice this isn't too different from how my electric bill works - National Grid charges me for the delivery and the electricity, but I can shop around to get electricity cheaper from other vendors. It still shows up as one bill.

That seems kinda stupid. Why announce that they're 'watching you' and give you evidence that they're doing so?

"Hey Agent P, I got a great idea. Let's h4xx0r her laptop, wipe out data, and let her know we're watching her. A member of the press would take that as a warning and not report on it, right?"
"Cool. *type type type*"

If you look at any person's laptop you'll find it absolutely coated with spyware. I run PC cleaning workshops for my church. Some of the stuff that comes in should really be nuked from orbit they're so bad. I'm starting to advocate people just start getting Chromebooks because there's not much of an OS to hack and 90% of what people do can be done from a web browser.