The U.S. Cybersecurity Agency Is Reportedly in Polygraph-Fueled Chaos

The inner workings of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are a chaotic single-camera sitcom presided over by an alleged Michael Scott-style oaf named Madhu Gottumukkala, according to the claims in an anonymously sourced article published in Politico on Sunday. 

Gottumukkala is the former Bureau of Information and Technology Commissioner for the state of South Dakota, who was appointed as deputy director of CISA, but also the de facto director, because the agency itself currently has no Senate-confirmed director.

Apparently the alleged dispute inside CISA was set in motion because Gottumukkala tried to access information about some unknown, but apparently exceptionally sensitive, intelligence program that had been shared with CISA by some other federal intelligence agency. Senior career employees at CISA reportedly discouraged Gottumukkala from pursuing this mystery information, and told him it would have been possible to do his job with a less sensitive version of this information, a course of action that wouldn’t involve mucking around with intense security checks.

It calls to mind the kind of intrigue that plagued the pre-vibe shift Trump 1.0 Administration, when Trump’s appointees constantly duked it out with career government employees, or as MAGA heads called them “deep state” operatives.

But Gottumukkala reportedly insisted, receiving a denial of his initial request for access. This next part is very complicated and you’ll just need to read it verbatim from Politico:

“The senior official who denied that read-in request was placed on administrative leave in late June for a reason unrelated to the polygraph, according to three current officials. As a result, that senior official was no longer in their role by the time a second request for a read-in — this time signed by Gottumukkala — was approved in early July, the third current official said.”

But that approval reportedly led to Gottumukkala being told he had to take a polygraph test—yes, a lie detector test, like on TV. Yes, with the attached wires and the zigzag readout and everything. Apparently the federal government has been using tons of these lately to find leakers, even though they are inadmissible as evidence in most courts.

So career CISA staff apparently arranged this lie detector test, which Gottumukkala then failed. There are no details about how all this unfolded, so here’s an artist’s rendering:

What allegedly followed is apparently why the whole agency is one big mess now. When all this got back to the Department of Homeland Security, according to a DHS spokesperson named Tricia McLaughlin who spoke to Politico, the test was deemed “unsanctioned.”

Politico says no less than six career government staffers who helped set up the test have been placed on administrative leave, and have had their access to classified information suspended. In DHS’s view, career staff members essentially bullied Gottumukkala into taking the test unnecessarily by making him believe it was required.

If true, that would be an amazing bit.

Anyway, North Korea, if you read all this I was just kidding so don’t get any ideas. Everything is going great at our federal cybersecurity agency.