Running a Civil Service
Instapundit points us to yet another example of FBI incompetence,
this time in the area of
network-security.html">securing data in its computers. I was just
reading a bio of Hanssen, the spy. What he did was sneak a look at
lots of secret files he shouldn’t have been allowed to see on the FBI
computers, downloaded them, and gave them to the Russians. It sounds
like they haven’t improved since then.
The reason, I expect, is that in a civil service system nobody ever
gets fired. In our civil service system, I wouldn’t be surprised if
nobody ever gets demoted or even loses their grade’s pay increase
either. That’s a big advantage of academia. We don’t demote
professors, but we do give them tiny salary increases if they are
incompetent (secretaries, etc. are a different matter).
The major purpose of the civil service system– to prevent
experienced workers from being fired and replaced with party hacks–
would be served if we merely protected workers’ current salaries, and
allowed flexible pay and postings otherwise. Then the FBI computer
security man could be put to sweeping floors, though on his current
salary. This would, of course, allow for punishment of civil servants
who don’t do what the President (Attorney General, FBI director, etc.
) wants, but we *do* want that kind of punishment– the voters should
be in charge, not the bureaucracy. And when a new President came in,
he could grant the punished civil servant back pay if he thought it
was deserved.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
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