The story is, on its surface, a typical example of Washington revolving-door payola:
What gives this particular case its Pittable distinction is Alexander’s own role in creating the problems for which he now sells solutions:
Well, this certainly puts the crass in his Crassus reincarnation.
If he created it while working for the NSA (and I get that the article does not actually say this), wouldn’t it belong to the NSA?
Given that his skills are in administration rather than technogeekery, it is unlikely that he himself personally created it either during or after his government employment. Of course, that simply shifts the issue onto the actual creators, and raises the addition question of whether they are still working for the government or have gone through the same revolving door to FreeMoneyLand.
You kind of have to wonder about the opposite end of this also. When Alexander was NSA director, did he ever squash proposed surveillance programs because he knew he wouldn’t later be able to beat them? He might have intentionally kept the bar low enough for his future business to be able to jump over it.
That’s possible, though it doesn’t seem to have any obvious relevance to the specific type of services (anti-intrusion security, not private-communication security – admittedly, the former is a prerequisite for the latter to be effective) Alexander is apparently selling as a contractor.
In any case, the latest report on the damage done by government policy has some useful recommendations, including one that would help avoid this sort of problem: