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A comment on After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge. Parent comment

Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by bazillion on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @11:17AM (#9296840)
It's....not. It's part of the Department of Defense. Although this department includes the military forces (minus the coast guard), the vast majority of its member agencies are all civilian agencies, and the person who heads it up (Secretary of Defense) is a civilian.
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by runjake on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @11:55AM (#9297245)
> It's....not [part of the military]. It's part of the Department of Defense.

I think you're picking hairs. While NSA is not strictly a military branch, NSA is a defense agency within the DoD. It is not directed by a civilian, but by a commissioned officer of the military. That seems pretty damned close enough to me.

> the vast majority of its member agencies are all civilian agencies

I don't know how you came to this conclusion, as the actual numbers and ratio of military vs. civilian personnel is still classified to the best of my knowledge. To the best of my (circumstantial) knowledge, the ratio for civilian vs. (usually US Navy) military personnel is likely somewhere around 60/40. I couldn't tell you which category is civilian vs. military, though.

> the person who heads it up (Secretary of Defense) is a civilian.

No, the person who heads it up is an Admiral in the Navy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Rogers

The SECDEF oversees the DoD as a whole.

I'd love to know how you came up with your conclusions, as you seem to have some familiarity with the Beltway, because they don't match my experiences.

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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by jessaustin on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @12:02PM (#9297325)
Hint: "this department" refers to the department under discussion, i.e. DoD. If GP had said "this agency", this odd tangent might have made sense.

[EDIT: also you seem to have edited your comment 3 times in less than 5 minutes, without mentioning the fact. Some people consider this rude.]

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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by bazillion on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @12:10PM (#9297414)
> I don't know how you came to this conclusion, as the actual numbers and ratio of military vs. civilian personnel is still classified to the best of my knowledge. To the best of my (circumstantial) knowledge, the ratio for civilian vs. (usually US Navy) military personnel is likely somewhere around 60/40. I couldn't tell you which category is civilian vs. military, though.

I'm not saying this to be mean, but you didn't parse my comment properly, so I'll break it down.

>Although this department includes the military forces (minus the coast guard), the vast majority of its member agencies are all civilian agencies, and the person who heads it up (Secretary of Defense) is a civilian.

This department is referring to the Department of Defense. The next sentence refers to its member agencies, not the members of its agencies. The member agencies (the agencies that are a part of the Department of Defense) are mostly civilian agencies, which you can see listed out on the wikipedia page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Def...

In it, you'll see that there are 15 defense agencies, 4 intelligence agencies, and 3 military departments, for a grand total of 19 to 3.

> No, the person who heads it up is an Admiral in the Navy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_S._Rogers The SECDEF oversees the DoD as a whole.

The "it" in that sentence is referring to the Department of Defense -- which was initiated by "this department". The person you linked to DIRNSA, which has nothing to do with what I was saying.

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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by selectodude on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:10PM (#9298016)
The Secretary of Defense is Ashton Carter, who's a physicist that's never served in the US Military.
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by tedunangst on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @12:03PM (#9297338)
Huh? Michael Rogers is not the secretary of defense.
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by anoncoward13212 on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @12:34PM (#9297638)
It's splitting hairs. (and what I'm doing, only $deity knows)
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by SEJeff on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @11:44AM (#9297136)
Anything under DoD should be considered military, as it falls under the jurisdiction of the Pentagon, which is military.
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by tedunangst on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @12:05PM (#9297357)
What does it mean to be under the jurisdiction of the pentagon? It's an office building. What jurisdiction does it have?
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by ryandrake on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:01PM (#9297919)
Saying the Pentagon is an office building is like saying the White House is a single family home.
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by ocb on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:21PM (#9298142)
In fact, the Pentagon and the DoD are synonyms in most usage.
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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by tedunangst on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:53PM (#9298457)
Which doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the original sentence.

Anything under DoD should be considered military, as it falls under the jurisdiction of the DoD, which is military.

A little circular.

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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by SEJeff on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @01:23PM (#9298163)
It is a building where the DoD and all of the top military brass work. All DoD aka "military" decisions ultimately come from the Pentagon, where the final say for all things DoD reside.

Disclaimer: I never worked at the pentagon, but am a US Army veteran who was in Military Intelligence from 2001-2005.

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Re:After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge by grey-area on Tuesday March 31, 2015 @02:15PM (#9298645)
Metonymy
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