Hi WaitWaitWha,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

>First, the two pay scales you posted are not a complete picture. The CEO in the non-profit makes $397,684, while the top GS15 step 10 makes $176,300. First, the more appropriate comparison would be the Senior Executive Service (SES) pay scale which tops out at $226,300. Additionally, a non-profit executive takes retirement out of their earnings of $400K, while the government employee's retirement is guaranteed and does not come out of their $226K.

You're correct my reply was not completely accurate with regard to numbers, so thanks for that.

But, to be clear the issue is the CEO justified folks payrates (mostly attorneys recently out of law school from across the T14) based on what a JD would make on the GS scale[0], while conversely the executives, as you can see from the data, made more.

This was also a smaller nonprofit, I've met folks with similar salaries but much larger teams or orgs.

Meanwhile, here it is clearly stated that someone with "3 years of graduate-level education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. degree or equivalent doctoral degree" should make GS-11 (not clear on what step):

https://www.generalschedule.org/articles/general-schedule-ed...

Also, to be CRYSTAL clear:

I also did not CHOOSE nonprofits.

It was my perception they refused to hire me because if things like very openly stating I would not be applying to the NSA because I was worried I'd be asked to engage in illegal activities, based on my readings on cases like Jewel v. NSA[2].

When I was charting career paths I also (verbally) expressed concern about scholarship for service -- that a president might institute a government shutdown or otherwise interfere with folks ability to fulfill the requirements, causing them to be forced to pay the loans bqack, which IIRC happened during the Trump administration:

https://www.cyberscoop.com/government-shutdown-cybersecurity...

(In fact, one the last decent contact I had in the federal government stopped speaking to me when I tried to clarify whay became of that fiasco, it's not in any publicly available news source I could find)

So from my perspective, by the time I was at Center for Democracy & Technology, we were in a "fall of the USSR" situation. I had to repeatedly tell people "this isn't high school" as I was stymied despite having more intelligence capabilities than some small countries.

That meant that absent a VERY compelling reason, if there is never a context where someone opposes me when I've done nothing my entire life but work as what only fairly recently has been termed a "public interest technologist", it makes me question people's integrity, especially paired with things like words and phrases from private conversations making their way into CDT whitepapers after my departure and after the new CEO refused to even interview me.

It is completely unacceptable that across two different leaders this pattern of gatekeeping access to employment has continued.

I emailed the dean at Georgetown, William Treanor, about the above mentioned plagiarism issue, but didn't get a substantive reply.

I am not a lawyer, but speaking as someone who has not crossed an international border since the Obama administration, it's my understanding espionage is a capital offense... so on a long enough timeline if I cannot understand why people are making hiring decisions, paired with rampant illegal behavior, paired with refusals to connect me with work or compensate me for past harms, then all I can do is openly muse what motivates folks as I read and respond to publicly available information.

For context, I currently reside in the City of Pittsburgh.

I am tired of writing out long paragraphs like the above.

The last time I put this much energy into a post on the internet, a crowd formed outside the Mayor's house, and we got a new one. Then the Boy Scouts went bankrupt, and Mike Doyle (the cult adjacent[1] congressman) decided not to run for another term.

In closing, I feel that I was underpaid, illegally fired, then subjected to electronic and physical attacks by members of so called civil society.

I encourage anyone who desires to, to read the above and reply.

I'm happy to have a discussion.

I will do my best to be honest and accurate, but it may "trigger" some folks who aren't used to having hard questions asked in a public forum.

Have a nice evening, and thanks again for those numbers, sincerely.

[0] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/09/13/frat-house-for...
[2] https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/jewel/jewel.complaint.pdf