, SecurityFocus 2002-04-10
Some computer security professionals are already feeling the pinch from a new Defense Department policy discouraging contractors from hiring non-citizens. The Pentagon says it's about loyalty; visa holders call it classic xenophobia.
Expand all |
Post comment
Fears of a Security Brain Drain
2002-04-11
Anonymous (2 replies)
Anonymous (2 replies)
Fears of a Security Brain Drain
2002-04-11
Conscious US Citizen (1 replies)
Conscious US Citizen (1 replies)
While I agree with the sentiment, I don't agree with the statement...
Before I started my own company, I routinely competed with immigrant consultants of certain racial persuasions, and I found that very often, these certain racial persuasions were favored because they accepted consulting rates that most Americans would laugh at. For example, I once bid on a very high level infoforensics contract, only to find that the eventual successful bidder was Indian, and had bid less than HALF of my daily rate.
I am not inexpensive, but I am certainly not outrageous or unreasonable with regards to consulting rates. Large numbers of Indian consultants allowed larger companies to begin cutting contract rates, because they knew they could always find an Indian consultant willing to work for a much lower rate than Americans would accept.
I applaud the DOD's actions, although not for the stated reason for which they initiated them.
If anything, this action will bring highly skilled American workers back into government projects, which we used to refuse because the Indians had driven the rates so far down. Government contracts never paid all that well to begin with, and the Indians willing to do very high level security work for $100 per hour only made things very much worse...
There will not be a security brain drain - if anything, the opposite will be true. As I said, the best security consultants stayed away from the artificially low consulting rates, and those consultants will now begin to return to Federal and DOD work.
I myself am very much looking forward to returning to DOD projects, now that I don't have to worry about being underbid by a Visa-holder just trying to stay in the USA...
I used to work for a very good manager who used the term "skin in the game" to describe motivating people. Regardless of what all of the Visa-holders might now be saying, I have skin in this game - they are only here for the money. We should have done this a very long time ago...
Now, if we could just get Wall Street to follow suit...
:-)
[ reply ]
Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/articles/367/11837#11837