Syria army quits base on strategic Aleppo road

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army abandoned its last base near the northern town of Saraqeb after a fierce assault by rebels, further isolating the strategically important second city Aleppo from the capital.

But in a political setback to forces battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said the rebels appeared to have committed a war crime after seizing the base.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday government troops had retreated from a post northwest of Saraqeb, leaving the town and surrounding areas “completely outside the control of regime forces”.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reported army withdrawal. Authorities restrict journalists’ access in Syria and state media made no reference to Saraqeb.

The pullout followed coordinated rebel attacks on Thursday against three military posts around Saraqeb, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Aleppo, in which 28 soldiers were killed.

Several were shown in video footage being shot after they had surrendered.

“The allegations are that these were soldiers who were no longer combatants. And therefore, at this point it looks very likely that this is a war crime, another one,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva.

“Unfortunately this could be just the latest in a string of documented summary executions by opposition factions as well as by government forces and groups affiliated with them, such as the shabbiha (pro-government militia),” he said.

Video footage of the killings showed rebels berating the captured men, calling them “Assad’s dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

Rights groups and the United Nations say rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have committed war crimes during the 19-month-old conflict. It began with protests against Assad and has spiraled into a civil war which has killed 32,000 people and threatens to drag in regional powers.

The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Sunni states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and neighboring Turkey. Shi’ite Iran remains the strongest regional supporter of Assad, who is from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

STRATEGIC BLOW

Saraqeb lies at the meeting point of Syria’s main north-south highway, linking Aleppo with Damascus, and another road connecting Aleppo to the Mediterranean port of Latakia.

With areas of rural Aleppo and border crossings to Turkey already under rebel control, the loss of Saraqeb would leave Aleppo city further cut off from Assad’s Damascus powerbase.

Any convoys using the highways from Damascus or the Mediterranean city of Latakia would be vulnerable to rebel attack. This would force the army to use smaller rural roads or send supplies on a dangerous route from Al-Raqqa in the east, according to the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman.

In response to the rebels’ territorial gains, Assad has stepped up air strikes against opposition strongholds, launching some of the heaviest raids so far against working class suburbs east of Damascus over the last week.

The bloodshed has continued unabated despite an attempted ceasefire, proposed by join U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to mark last month’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

In the latest in a string of fruitless international initiatives, China called on Thursday for a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body – an idea which opposition leaders hope to flesh out at a meeting in Qatar next week.

Veteran opposition leader Riad Seif has proposed a structure bringing together the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other rebel forces alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures.

His plan, called the Syrian National Initiative, calls for four bodies to be established: the Initiative Body, including political groups, local councils, national figures and rebel forces; a Supreme Military Council; a Judicial Committee and a transitional government made up of technocrats.

The initiative has the support of Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for an overhaul of the opposition, saying it was time to move beyond the troubled Syrian National Council.

The SNC has failed to win recognition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and Clinton said it was time to bring in “those on the front lines fighting and dying”.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Worries over basic bank accounts

1 November 2012 Last updated at 20:01 ET

A watchdog has claimed that “dark clouds” are gathering for the future of simple bank accounts designed for vulnerable and low-income customers.

Consumer Focus said that basic bank accounts – assisting those with chequered credit histories – have been a success for the banking industry.

But it warned that a minimum standard was needed to ensure they survived.

The Treasury Committee has sought reassurance that ATM access for these customers will not be restricted.

Wishlist

One in five UK adults have a basic bank account as their only or main account, according to Consumer Focus. They were first offered about a decade ago and have most commonly been used by people needing an account to allow their wages to be paid.

These accounts do not offer overdrafts. Some have a debit card, but with only limited facilities and no chequebook. They do not incur a monthly fee.

There are about 20 basic bank accounts available. They have tended to be used by people who have experienced difficulties with credit in the past and so are turned down when applying for a regular current account.

Continue reading the main story

These are simple accounts which allow customers to have their wages, benefits, and cheques paid in.

Customers can gain access to their money from some cash machines, or the Post Office.

Bills can be made by direct debit from the account, but these accounts offer no overdraft facility or access to credit – unlike most standard current accounts.

However, only Barclays allows undischarged bankrupts to sign up, after the Co-op withdrew from this market in September.

Meanwhile, RBS and NatWest joined Lloyds Banking Group in withdrawing access for basic bank account holders to the Link cash machine network.

Consumer Focus said that action was needed from all banks and building societies to ensure there were no further restrictions of basic bank accounts in the future.

It is calling for minimum standards for basic accounts that include:

• Full cash machine and Post Office counter access


• Free electronic payments and debit card use


• Buffer zones to cover small overdrafts


• No large fees for unpaid charges

“The last thing these consumers need is a race to the bottom between banks which keep chipping away at the features these accounts offer,” said Mike O’Connor, chief executive at Consumer Focus.

“Without intervention, these accounts could become less useful or more expensive for low-income consumers.”

The Co-operative Bank, which blamed an “un-level playing field” for pulling out of offers to undischarged bankrupts, has also expressed its fear that the standards for basic bank accounts will continue to deteriorate.

Cash machine access

In tandem with the campaign from Consumer Focus, the Treasury Committee said providers including Bank of Ireland, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank, the Co-op and Nationwide had confirmed they had no plans to restrict cash machine access for basic bank account customers.

Similar undertakings were given by Barclays, HSBC and Santander during the committee’s inquiry into ATM access earlier this year.

“We have now obtained confirmation from other providers of basic bank accounts that they have no plans to restrict access to cash machines for these customers. That is a step forward,” said Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the committee.

“However, the letters that I received make clear that this might change. That RBS and Lloyds should want to cut their costs is understandable. But the cash machine network is a cost shared by all banks; if one bank decides to withdraw from the system, it is more likely that others would be forced to follow suit.”

BBC News – Business

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10 Wooden iPhone Cases for the Geeky Lumberjack

1. Grove Cases

A mix of bamboo and plant fiber composite combine to create this classic Grove case. There are tons of achingly cool etched patterns to choose from on the site, or you can design your own. For: iPhone 4/4S, 5, Cost: From $ 79

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: YouTube’s 20 Most-Shared Ads in October]

If you’re in the market for a new iPhone case, why not give wood a chance? We have found 10 gorgeous cases made from natural materials.

Take a look through our hand-picked selection in the photo gallery above. Let us know in the comments below if you’d consider a wooden cover for your Apple device.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Suicide Silence singer Lucker dies in California motorcycle accident

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Mitch Lucker, the lead singer of extreme heavy metal band Suicide Silence, died on Thursday of injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in Huntington Beach, California, police said.

The band from Southern California was given the Golden Gods award for best new talent by Revolver magazine in 2009.

Lucker, 28, was on a new Harley Davidson motorcycle driving in the Orange County city of Huntington Beach on Halloween night when he lost control and crashed into a light pole, according to a statement from the local police department.

He was taken to the University of California, Irvine Medical Center where he later died, police said. Investigators said they were looking into the cause of the collision and whether alcohol was a factor.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” the band said in a post on Facebook. “Mitch passed away earlier this morning from injuries sustained during a motorcycle accident.”

Suicide Silence in 2007 came out with the album “The Cleansing” and followed that up with the 2009 “No Time to Bleed” and last year’s “The Black Crown,” which made its way to No. 9 on the Billboard hard rock chart.

The band, whose musical style is referred to as “deathcore,” is originally from Riverside, California, a working-class community 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Will Dunham)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Wage scar” threatens U.S. labor recovery: Manpower CEO

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A “wage scar” caused by workers accepting lower pay could slow the pace of U.S. economic recovery for years to come, the chief executive of global staffing services company ManpowerGroup said on Fri day.

Workers are accepting lower pay because a U.S. labor recovery, while encouraging, remains muted.

“You get this kind of wage scar that occurs,” Jeff Joerres said in an interview following a stronger-than-expected October jobs report that also showed a dip in average hourly wages.

“You make a compromise and you’re now making $ 25,000 and you used to make $ 30,000,” Joerres said. “That kind of follows you … throughout your career. So by the time you’re 50 years old, when you normally would’ve been making $ 60,000, you’re now making $ 52,000.

“Those things are going to happen. We’re going to see lower disposable income and a more tepid economy for a long time.”

The U.S. economy added 171,000 jobs outside the farm sector last month. That was more than economists forecast, but the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9 percent.

At that pace of payrolls growth, it would take more than two years for the labor market to reach pre-recession levels.

FRAGILE RECOVERY

Friday’s jobs report showed 13,600 temporary help jobs added in October. Those jobs, which rose at a slightly faster pace sequentially than is typical, are considered a leading indicator of broader labor activity because employers add or cut temporary workers before hiring or firing permanent staff.

The percentage of temps in the labor force rose to 1.9 percent but remains below its year 2000 record above 2 percent.

Temp jobs usually rise as companies ramp up in October ahead of the holiday shopping season. Although the move was encouraging, Joerres said, the jobs recovery remains fragile and a prolonged period of flattish growth is much more likely than a fast, ‘V-shaped’ recovery.

“It’s a hand-over-hand crawl out of where we were. If anybody wants to see a number like 250,000 to 300,000, which would not be unusual if we start really motoring, we have a ways to go before that,” he said. “When we talk to clients, the more conversations recently are about holding back as opposed to moving forward, and part of that is just a wall of uncertainty.”

Some uncertainty will lift once it is clear who wins Tuesday’s election, but attention will immediately turn to the so-called “fiscal cliff” of budget cuts and tax hikes that could begin in the new year.

“What we need to get on very quickly is the fiscal cliff. Regardless of who wins, what are you gonna do with that?” Joerres said. “That’s the one that really starts to affect the economy.”

Employers have cash but are waiting to see a clearer direction for the economy before they commit to spending it. Besides the U.S. fiscal situation and the possibility that President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms could be reversed if he fails to win re-election, corporate chiefs worry about the European debt crisis, China’s economy and recent tensions between Japan and China over disputed islands.

“The interconnected world is creating variables that we just can’t understand,” Joerres said. (Reporting by Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Civility efforts seek better behavior on campus

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Jewish students in the University of California system labeled terrorists for their support of Israel. Black high school students pelted by bananas on a Tennessee campus tour. A hostile student in Maryland challenging his professor to a fight after the teacher limited the use of cell phones and laptops during lectures.

In a society where anonymous Internet commenters freely lob insults, and politicians spew partisan barbs, the decline of basic civility isn’t limited to academia. But the push for more polite discourse — often as an extension of more entrenched diversity efforts — is firmly taking root on campus.

From the University of Missouri to Penn State and Vanderbilt, colleges across the country are treating the erosion of common decency as a public health epidemic on par with measles outbreaks and sexually transmitted diseases.

“What we’re trying to do is remind me people of what they already know, to get back in touch with things they probably learned growing up,” said Noel English, who heads a new Missouri civility campaign called “Show Me Respect,” a nod to the state’s nickname.

The Missouri campaign comes after two white students pleaded guilty in April 2010 to misdemeanor littering charges for dumping cotton balls outside the school’s black culture center during Black History Month; the students were sentenced to 80 hours of community service, two years of probation and had their driver licenses suspended for two months. A 2009 survey of more than 3,500 students found that nearly one in seven reported incidents of harassment on campus, from racial slurs to hostile emails.

At a campus civility workshop earlier this week, Eric Waters, a junior from Mansfield, Texas, who is the football team’s starting tight end, described how other students often label Mizzou football players as “mean” and “disrespectful” womanizers, sometimes to his face.

“It’s not about the stereotypes people put on us,” he said. “We try to carry ourselves like true gentlemen.”

The University of Tennessee enacted its civility campaign in 2011. There had been a cotton ball incident at the Knoxville school’s black cultural center after President Barack Obama‘s election and, in 2010, bananas were thrown at a group of more than 100 black high school students from Memphis during a campus visit.

“We want to be a campus that’s welcoming to all, and hostile to none,” said Chancellor Jimmy Cheek, who now outlines the school’s 10 “principles of civility and community” at freshman orientation. The shared values range from inclusivity and collegiality to respect and integrity.

In some cases, the campus civility campaigns are being challenged by First Amendment advocates who fear that such programs muzzle unpopular speech in the name of tolerance and diversity.

That was the complaint at North Carolina State University, which revised a residence hall policy that, among other stipulations, prohibited dorm dwellers from wearing T-shirts or hanging posters “disrespectful and hurtful to others” while also requiring students to “confront behavior or report to staff incidents of incivility and intolerance.”

The new policy now includes a written caveat calling the civility effort a set of “voluntary expectations” while emphasizing that the school is “strongly committed to freedom of expression.”

“Civility is an important value,” said Robert Shibley, senior vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which protested the Raleigh university’s civility policy. “But at the same time, it can’t be made the paramount issue in a free society, because there has to be space for people who have intense feelings about things to express those feelings in a way that really communicates the urgency and the depths of feeling that lies behind their opinions.”

When campuses attempt to compel civil behavior, Shibley said, they become “so committed to civility that if you say something uncivil, you are going to be penalized In some way, that’s going too far. It starts to infringe on the very expressions that are protected by the First Amendment.”

Many credit Pier Forni, a professor of Italian literature at Johns Hopkins University, as the dean of the campus civility movement. He started the Hopkins Civility Project 15 years ago, wrote the 2002 book “Choosing Civility” and is a frequent guest speaker on other campuses, including at Missouri earlier this year.

For Forni, the culprits behind contemporary incivility are numerous, from what he called “the crisis of civil engagement” in this country to eroding workplace manners to “radical informality” heightened by Facebook and related social media. Yet he has no interest in making civil behavior a campus requirement.

“Civility should be promoted, not believed in,” he said. “Civility is not something to enforce. “

Among the schools embracing those beliefs is the University of Arizona, which last year opened the National Institute for Civil Discourse after the shootings in Tucson, Ariz., that killed six people and injured 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

In 2010, Rutgers University launched its “Project Civility” just before freshman Tyler Clementi killed himself when a roommate secretly recorded the teen’s sexual encounter with another man. English, the Missouri campaign leader, said the New Jersey student’s suicide helped influence her decision to start a program on campus.

She, too, favors the voluntary approach, though her initial instincts said otherwise.

“My first thought was, ‘I’m a lawyer, we need a rule or a policy,’ but then my thinking was, ‘That’s not really necessary,’” she said. “We can have all the policies in the world, but what we want to do is raise awareness and get people thinking … We want to change the culture so it just becomes embedded.”

Or, as Noor Azizan-Gardner, Missouri’s chief diversity officer, put it: “I’m hoping when they graduate they will know what it means to be civil, kind and compassionate.”

___

Online:

Show Me Respect: http://civility.missouri.edu/

University of Tennessee Principles of Civility and Community: http://civility.utk.edu/

Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: http://thefire.org/

___ Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier

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NBC to hold a benefit concert for Sandy victims

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC will hold a benefit concert Friday for victims of Hurricane Sandy featuring some artists native to the areas hardest hit.

Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi of New Jersey and Billy Joel of Long Island are scheduled to appear at the concert, hosted by “Today” show co-host Matt Lauer.

Other performers include Christina Aguilera, Sting and Jimmy Fallon.

The telecast will benefit the American Red Cross and will be shown on NBC and its cable stations including Bravo, CNBC, USA, MSNBC and E! Other networks are invited to join in.

“Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together” will air at 8 p.m. EDT and will be taped-delayed in the West.

The telethon will be broadcast from NBC facilities in Rockefeller Center in New York City.

___

NBC is controlled by Comcast Corp.

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Living at high altitude tied to developmental delay

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – South American babies and toddlers living at high altitude were more likely to score poorly on early tests of brain development, in a new study.

Of all kids age three months to two years, one in five was at high risk of developmental delays, according to tests done at their pediatricians’ offices. That rose to between one in three and one in four for those who lived above 2,600 meters, or 8,530 feet.

Because there is less oxygen at higher elevations, researchers said blood flow in the uterus may also be decreased at altitude – which could impact the brain of a developing fetus.

“The findings emphasize the need for health care providers and policy-makers to recognize that altitude may increase developmental risks not just for physical growth, as has been reported, but for neurologic and cognitive development,” wrote George Wehby from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who conducted the research.

His study involved over 2,000 young kids evaluated at offices in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador in 2005 and 2006.

The babies and toddlers were all given a series of problem-solving and motor tasks to complete, which their doctors used to measure which ones might be at risk for delayed development.

Wehby found that on average, for every 100-meter (328-feet) increase in elevation, kids were 2 percent more likely to be judged at high risk of future developmental problems.

Compared to kids living below 800 meters (2,625 feet), those above 8,530 feet were twice as likely to be at high risk, according to their pediatricians’ evaluations.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

All of the babies in Bolivia lived above the 8,530-foot cut-off, and all the kids in Argentina, Brazil and Chile lived below it. Ecuador was the only country in the study that included kids from both high- and low-altitude regions.

Of the largest cities in the United States, Albuquerque has a high point of 6,120 feet and Denver of 5,470 feet. Many Western states – including California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah – have regions above 10,000 feet.

However, it’s hard to know whether the results apply to other communities at high elevation, according to Alexis Handal, an epidemiologist from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who does her research in Ecuador.

“We’re starting to realize there’s such a complicated social context within which these populations live that it’s very hard to look at one area and try to generalize to other areas,” Handal, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

For example, she said, parents’ work hours, whether families have access to nutritious food and what environmental toxins communities might be exposed to can all interact with factors like altitude to influence maternal and child health.

“Perhaps what we also have to focus on is… how can we also develop programs that promote infant development, that help families?” she added.

Wehby said in the study that babies born at higher elevations may be helped by earlier health screening to make sure they’re developing normally.

But he also pointed to the need for more research on why altitude may affect development – and whether similar patterns apply to kids in other high-altitude regions.

SOURCE: bitly.com/SsOh9z The Journal of Pediatrics, online October 22, 2012.

Parenting/Kids News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Comet to go into administration

1 November 2012 Last updated at 12:26 ET

Dan Wagner, Powa Technologies: “They failed to leverage their physical presence… ten years ago”

About 6,500 retail jobs are at risk after electrical chain Comet confirmed that it would be put into administration next week.

Private equity firm OpCapita, which owns the 240-store business, has lined up restructuring specialist Deloitte to act as administrator.

OpCapita bought Comet last year for £2, but the business has struggled from the downturn in consumer spending.

Comet’s demise is one of the biggest High Street casualties of recent years.

Two weeks ago, OpCapita said it was examining a number of potential bids for the retailer.

The administrator will run the business as a going concern while it assesses options for sales, closures and liquidation.

Comet said it was “urgently working” on plans to secure the company’s future. Customers with outstanding orders are being told it is “business as usual until further notice” and that the group intends to fulfil deliveries of products that have been paid for.

Comet’s customer care team is handling customer inquiries on 0844 8009595.

Continue reading the main story

• Any customers with Comet vouchers or gift cards can use them in stores at present


• Administrators would decide whether they would be honoured were the business to enter administration


• Generally, gift card holders are fairly low on a list of creditors when a business folds


• Extended warranties are overseen by a separate business. If it ceased trading, then a trust fund would be set up to meet obligations to customers who hold extended warranties


• The Comet website is currently out of action


• Customer enquiries are being answered by its customer card team on 0844 8009595

Shares of Comet’s rivals rose on news of the planned administration, with Dixons Retail, which owns PC World and Currys, jumping 15% as investors speculated that a major competitor could be removed from the market.

OpCapita bought Comet last February from Kesa Electricals, which had itself struggled to turn around the business. Comet is thought to have had operational losses of about £35m last year.

‘Market failure’

The economic downturn and pressure on consumer spending has led many people to put off purchases of big-ticket items such as TVs and large appliances. But sales of such items have also moved increasingly online.

Dan Wagner, a technology entrepreneur who has backed several internet businesses, told the BBC that Comet “was an accident waiting to happen” because successive managements had failed to understand the online world.

Retailers must now offer multi-channel options – shops, a website, purchases via mobile phones – to be successful, he said. “Comet failed to understand the importance of this for driving business.”

Jon Copestake, retail analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, also felt that Comet’s problems “come as little surprise”.

He said: “Not only has Comet faced deflationary pressures thanks to stiff competition and cheaper production costs, but core audio visual products are being undermined by combined platforms on smartphones and tablet computers.”

Comet is one of the biggest retail casualties since the demise of Woolworths in 2008. Other recent High Street collapses have included JJB Sports, Clinton Cards, Blacks Leisure, Game, and Peacocks.

America’s Best Buy recently pulled the plug on 11 giant electrical stores after failing to make inroads into the UK market.

Comet was founded in 1933 as a business charging batteries for wireless sets. It opened its first store in 1968, in Hull, and was bought by Kingfisher in 1984, which expanded the Comet brand into one of the most familiar names on the High Street.

BBC News – Business

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U.S. seeks patriotic computer geeks for help in cyber crisis

BOSTON (Reuters) – The Department of Homeland Security is considering setting up a “Cyber Reserve” of computer security experts who could be called upon in the event of a crippling cyber attack.

The idea came from a task force the agency set up to address what has long been a weak spot – recruiting and retaining skilled cyber professionals who feel they can get better jobs and earn higher salaries, in the private sector.

“The status quo is not acceptable,” DHS Deputy Secretary Jane Holl Lute told Reuters in a recent interview. “We are not standing around. There is a lot to do in cyber security.”

Lute said she hopes to have a working model for a Cyber Reserve within a year, with the first members drawn from retired government employees now working for private companies. The reserve corps might later look to experts outside of government.

The United States has become increasingly vocal about the need to beef up cyber defenses as Iranian hackers have repeatedly attacked the nation’s three biggest banks over the past year, raising the stakes in a long-running battle to protect private companies from digital attacks.

The detonation of a cyber “time bomb” at Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company in August caused unprecedented damage at a private company, pulling 30,000 PCs out of service and raising concerns that similar attacks could occur in the United States.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on October 11 that the country faces a potential “cyber Pearl Harbor” and that foreign groups have gained access to computer systems that control critical U.S. infrastructure, such as chemical, electricity and water plants.

The Department of Homeland Security has had trouble attracting and retaining top cyber talent since it was created after 9/11 in a massive merger of 22 agencies in 2002. In its early days, the DHS farmed out cyber work to contractors so it could quickly get systems running to improve national security.

As a result, the agency tends to award the most coveted cyber jobs to outside contractors. Those positions include forensics investigators, posts on “flyaway teams” that probe suspected cyber attacks and intelligence liaisons.

“It’s not the money that makes people go to the contractors. It’s the cool jobs,” said Alan Paller, co-chair of the DHS task force. “People want the excitement.”

The task force advised the DHS to give more exciting cyber work to government workers to help with retention.

NSA VS DHS

Over the past decade, only 3 percent of students who won scholarships through a prestigious government-funded program known as CyberCorps have taken jobs with DHS. In contrast, nearly a third chose the National Security Agency, according to the task force.

Tony Sager, a task force member and former NSA senior official, said the military intelligence agency has a strong “brand” that opens doors for recruiters.

“DHS doesn’t have that sense of ‘Wow,’” he said. “There are plenty of cool jobs at DHS. The job is identifying them.”

The NSA has spent decades building cachet with university students through on-campus programs and, more recently, with children through cartoon puzzles on the Web. Once people join the NSA, they typically stay for a long time, said Sager, who retired this year after 34 years at the agency.

The DHS task force recommended it set up two-year cyber programs at community colleges to train large numbers of people and encourage military veterans to participate. Lute said the first of those programs could start next year.

Jeff Moss, who co-chairs the task force, said the community college programs would produce more graduates than needed, but the question is how many of them would want to work for DHS.

“Hopefully we’ll get our fair share,” said Moss, who founded the Def Con hacking convention 20 years ago during a summer break before he started law school.

The DHS may need to boost salaries as well. One former agency official who left government for a job with a private company said that some staff quit DHS jobs, then were immediately returned as employees for outside contractors.

“On Friday they are a government employee working making $ 80,000 a year. On Monday they are a contractor at the same desk and the government is paying them roughly $ 150,000,” he said.

(Reporting By Jim Finkle; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)

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