Some Craiglist advertisers are looking for a few good geeks to help with cybersecurity. Others need high-tech maps created for the military in Europe. Sometimes the government gets involved directly, as with this solicitation from the Army urging veterans to apply for positions in communications or military intelligence. Clearly, it’s not just legal-services firms and sales companies abandoning newspaper help-wanted sections for the online classifieds juggernaut.

Battelle, for instance, is a Columbus, Ohio-based science and technology non-profit and government contractor that designs everything from vital-sign monitors in Black Hawk helicopters to systems that integrate the computer networks of cops and firefighters. The firm, which holds $750 million worth of national-security contracts with the government, is headhunting for an intelligence analyst and “targeting” officer to work in its Arlington, Virginia office. Sure enough, an ad for the nebulously-defined job appears on the Government Jobs section of the DC Craigslist yesterday, although company spokesman T.R. Massey says he’s not sure if Battelle posted the solicitation itself or if someone unaffiliated with the company re-posted the ad from Battelle’s own website.

In any event, what’s a targeting officer going to do for Battelle and its clients? Conduct “functional management, coordination, and assessments of worldwide intelligence activities,” for one thing, as well as prepare “Strategic Targeting Packages,” which makes it sound like someone is going to die, giving new meaning to the term “Craigslist Killer.” If you’ve got a Department of Defense top-secret clearance and “8+ years experience with specific issue focus in counterterrorism, counter proliferation, or financial issues or specific regional expertise in Horn of Africa, Asia, or East Asia,” you might have a new job in your future. Knowledge of Microsoft Office a plus. Please, no phone calls.

But Battelle is hardly the only national-security contractor to turn to Craigslist. Another post advertises two job fairs next week in Baltimore and northern Virginia for a smorgasbord of intelligence, defense and homeland security companies, including Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. Want a job analyzing human intelligence or translating languages spoken in dangerous, far-flung parts of the globe? There’s just one requirement for dropping off your resume. “Any level of Active Security Clearance issued by the US Federal Government or Military is REQUIRED to attend (or clearance last used within past 24 months),” the post reads.

And if ever there was an illustration of Craigslist’s utility for, um, anonymous encounters, some security firms don’t even list their names. Here’s one “small company” seeking “Cyber Defenders” familiar with all aspects of human and technologically-derived intelligence. All the company will tell Craigslist trawlers about itself — aside from its “great benefits and tremendous personal growth potential!” — is that it works “in the Fort Meade area.” So: Cyber Command or the National Security Agency? Both?

It makes sense: even though government contracting keeps the D.C. area’s employment rate higher than the rest of the country’s, the economy is still in crisis mode, and Craigslist attracts about 60 million unique monthly viewers. Surely some fraction of them will settle for desk jobs in the intelligence community working on computers running Windows98.

Credit: Ben Gertzfield / Flickr

See Also:

• Search Top Secret America’s Database of Private Spooks
• Intelcrats’ Awesomely Bad Pushback to ‘Top Secret America …
• Intel Chief: Don’t Get ‘Shrill’ About Spooks-for-Hire
• How Congress Fueled the Rise of Private Spies

Authors: Spencer Ackerman

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