I guess DHS suffers from the same "brain drain" problem that plagues other government agencies in the DC area. Some government agencies can't keep the best talent from moving to higher paying private sector jobs (e.g. biotech firms in southern Maryland and private sector contractors in northern Virginia). People want to serve, but they also want to be able to afford to have nice homes and send their children to good schools.

Maybe DHS and friends need to:
1). Pay more
2). Set up offices in lower cost areas of the US to take advantage of workforce centers away from DC.
3). Maybe not get a reputation for abusing people during the security clearance poly process.

"We've basically tripled [DHS headcount] from '07 to '09 in cyber-security," yeah and it’s all management who got the job because they knew someone when they were contracting. Personally I think the application process for the government sucks… anybody who completes all of that “required” paperwork SHOULD get the job. Then after you spend hours completing form after form, nobody contacts you, WTF! But on the other side, who really wants to work for DHS or any other government agency when the politics in those places are so bad you cannot get anything done and all they want to do is bring in another consulting agency and throw boatloads of money at them. I worked as a security consultant in an “un-named” government agency for 18 months, and all that we could report or comment on was only what was in scope… regardless how serious or urgent it was. So I ran as far and as fast as I could away from the government.