James Comey Lies About FBI Marijuana Policy at Boston Cyber-Conference

By Benjamin M. Adams, March 10, 2017   @BenAdamsO_O

In all fairness, perhaps FBI director James Comey thinks it takes three years to drive to a job interview. He is a D.C. denizen, after all. Or maybe Comey doesn’t know the FBI’s hiring guidelines. Those other explanations failing, one can only conclude that James Comey is not only a liar but also that he is unprepared to lead the agency in the new cyber-threat era that has dawned.

Quick backgrounder: The U.S government cannot protect its data at any level, even its most top-secret. WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 continues to yield embarrassing revelations which confirm this painful truth– that the U.S. government is woefully behind the curve on cyber and data security. The CIA cyber ops team in Germany could not even protect its own data, data that was purposely disconnected from any internet connection. Let that sink in.

Speaking in Boston on Wednesday, Comey acknowledged the need to attract young people to work for the FBI in order to effectively combat the cyber threats facing the United States. Characterizing the FBI’s past troubles, Comey tells a pithy story about talking to his daughter about trying to recruit young, talented people to the FBI. His daughter asks him why a young person would want to work for “The Man.” Comey then dad-splains to his daughter that she is “right but wrong” and that bright young people would want to work for the FBI if only they understood how hip and cool the place is these days. You can listen to the entire talk here. The dad-splaining part starts at 14:10.

It’s awfully cute. You almost find yourself starting to like old James Comey, even though one thinks he may have… oh never mind that treason stuff for now. Let’s pull together, like Jim says, to defeat the evil layer-cake of cyber threats. (That is his analogy, not mine). Comey is here to deliver a message about young people working for the FBI. In a delivery that invokes the evil spawn of corporate jargon and political doublespeak — Director Jim tells the youth that everything is totes chill at the FBI:

“And part of this avoiding this ‘You’re the man’ trap, is to be a little cooler than I may appear. To offer these talented young people an enterprise that is more agile than they might expect. We’re not going to beanbag chairs and granola and white boards, but we’re trying to get close to that. To make sure that these great young people understand that although we are enormous, there are opportunities for innovation and agility inside the FBI that they may not realize.” 

One senses that perhaps Comey is trying to simply say that it’s OK to smoke weed and work for the FBI on its cyber team. And even though that is what clearly ought to be said, Comey lacks the ability to say so. He prefers to work in innuendo, but I will let that pass. Actually, I won’t. Comey is nothing if not slick. He clearly hates the Clintons because he is one of the Clintons, if not literally (just kidding, Bill), then in spirit. Like the Clintons, Comey wants to be all things to all people and ends up being nothing. People know slickness when they see it. It’s why that moniker stuck with Bill and it suits Comey just fine as well. Nonetheless, slickness is sometimes merely a stylistic deficiency.

The truth is that we do need the best and the brightest to serve this County. When it comes to Cyber, lots of the folks will be computer whiz-kids. They are also gamers and they mostly smoke weed. Comey must realize this, right? So I say let’s give Slick Grandpa Comey a chance to prove he is cool. He doesn’t get off to a good start:

To be a cyber-agent of the FBI, you need several buckets of attributes. We need integrity– non-negotiable. We need physicality. If you’re going to carry a weapon on behalf of the Unites states of America, you’d better be able to run fight and shoot, even if your specialty mostly keeps you by the keyboard. 

Wait, what? That’s just monumentally stupid if true. You won’t let a computer super-genius into the FBI because he’s a wimp? Or because she uses a wheelchair? Or because perhaps she doesn’t want to fight and shoot? That seems counter-intuitive, but we are going to forget that also because I know this dude is talking about weed somewhere somehow in this damn talk. You could feel it with the talk about granola and beanbags. Yes, Cool Grandpa needs you to shoot and run and fight but he said he was flexible so there’s only one thing left that could mean.

Finally, he goes there. I knew he would. It only makes sense that if I am a young super-genius who eschews a life working at Apple or Google in favor of a career at the FBI, I don’t need to give up weed on top of money, benefits, sleep, and safety.

Comey:

We will often find people who have intelligence and integrity but can’t do a pushup. Or we might find people who can do pushups and are great behind a computer but they want to smoke weed on the way to the interview. 

Aside from Grandpa’s odd fixation with a cyber force that can shoot and do push-ups, the bit about not blazing on the way to the interview seems inherently reasonable. If that’s the standard, Snoop and Willie Nelson could probably work for the FBI. Could the FBI policy on dope really be this dope? In all honesty, let’s hope not. Rather, let’s assume that Grandpa James is speaking hyperbolically when he cautions that young people who want to work for the FBI merely need to refrain from toking on the way to the interview. He is probably saying, you know, pass the stupid drug test. I don’t happen to think the FBI should test its cyber-agents for marijuana as long as it allows them to drink alcohol. Having said that, I also happen to think if you can’t quit weed for 30 days in order to advance your career, then you certainly don’t have the discipline to work for the FBI. You probably need help, to be honest. Obviously, this doesn’t include folks with a serious condition who use marijuana as medicine.

So, wow. There it was. Slick Grandpa Comey making sense and being cool and doing a good job reaching out to young people. Oh yeah one other thing. James is totally and completely full of spit.

Here is the FBI website as of today:

Yes, that’s right. No marijuana use for three (3) years even if it is legal in home state and even in the case of medical marijuana prescribed by a physician under a state regulated system. Its about as draconian as possible. I’m disgusted to realize this was the policy under the Obama administration, but that only reminds me of my larger disgust at Obama for his total weakness and stupidity on the subject of weed including his refusal to reschedule weed, raids on dispensaries, and hostile banking and tax rules. Unlike the GOP, however, my problems with Obama no longer strike me as particularly relevant at this point for reasons too obvious to state. James Comey on the other hand has basically ruined the Country but he is also the acting FBI director and as such he has an obligation to be honest. One would think he would be particularly careful with his words, in light of the (ahem) problems which have occurred on his watch. Apparently not. He is a liar beyond repair, so I need to help him out here.

Jim, the FBI does not exclude people for smoking weed on the way to the job interview. So you have two choices. Choice number one is that you can keep lying to our faces until every last person in America despises you. Choice number two is for  you to sit down and have an honest conversation with your daughter about marijuana.