PAPERED OVER — Trump’s anti-woke blitz briefly claimed some alarming collateral damage this weekend, when photos circulated online showing that an NSA museum had used brown strips of paper to conceal a gallery honoring women and men of color from the agency. By mid-afternoon Sunday, the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum said it had “corrected” the “mistake.” But that was not before the image had ricocheted around the internet, stirring concern that the Pentagon was going to cartoonish lengths to rid any trace of former diversity, equity and inclusion programs — as well as recriminations from Trump allies that it was all a setup. Into the culture war: The spat at the signals intelligence agency comes as the Trump administration and new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in particular have moved at breakneck speed to implement a flurry of new anti-DEI directives — some of which have appeared to have gone too far or sparked a bipartisan backlash. Hence, the worry: Before the NSA’s National Cryptologic Museum publicly recanted, the images of the slapdash cover-up drew concerned posts from the likes of former NSA Director Michael Hayden, former U.S. intelligence veteran Larry Pfeiffer and Mark Zaid, a prolific attorney who handles national security cases affecting federal employees. The gallery that had been literally papered over featured NSA legends who left their mark on the agency while it was undoubtedly still a (white) boy’s club: people like Elizebeth Smith Friedman, considered one of the country’s best code-breakers, and Ann Caracristi, another cryptanalytic pioneer who became NSA’s first female deputy director. “We can debate which way the pendulum should or shouldn't be swinging on DEI ‘til the cows come home,” Pfeiffer said in an interview before the Cryptologic Museum announced its reversal. “But let's not cover up with brown paper the people that we should be honoring.” …and worry of sabotage: Josh Steinman, a former senior Trump administration official, was one of a handful of Trump allies who interjected in concerned threads online decrying the cover-ups, but suggesting it was part of a deliberate campaign to embarrass and caricature the new administration. Contacted for further clarification of his views, Steinman pointed both to a definition for the term “malicious compliance” — that is, following the letter of an instruction in extreme ways for the express purpose of undermining it — and his trust in Hegseth, who has quickly rolled out new agency-wide policies curtailing DEI. “SecDef’s policy is about returning the Department of Defense to a merit based culture,” he said in a text. Spokespeople for the National Security Council and the NSA did not respond to a request for comment about their view on the incident or why it happened. One thing to watch long-term: The incident underscores a dilemma the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress will have to tiptoe around: how to fill a yawning cyber workforce shortage in the U.S., if agencies are discouraged from reaching out to underrepresented communities like the Biden administration had been trying to do. The first hint of how the House threads that needle will come this week. The House Homeland Security Committee has a hearing on America’s cyber workforce this Wednesday.
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