The FBI's so-called cyber police has a ton on its plate, so much so that many of the agency's expected 2,000 new hires this year will be tasked with working on solving digital crimes.
But in order to attract the most skilled coders and hackers, the agency might have to change its attitude towards marijuana, FBI Director James B. Comey told attendees at an annual conference on white collar crime in New York City. Many of them are weed smokers and, under the FBI's current policy, would not be hireable if they've used the drug in the past three years.
“I have to hire a great work force to compete with those cyber criminals and some of those kids want to smoke weed on the way to the interview,” Comey said, acknowledging that the FBI has “changed both our mindset and the way we do business.”
Accordingly, the agency is "grappling with the question right now." It's no surprise. As the national marijuana legalization debate intensifies, we expect to increasingly see groups and individuals adopt a more liberal stance on the green.
[via The Wall Street Journal]
