48 from a fully accredited technical school or university. Snowden did not meet these standards. Lacking these qualifications, the CIA can make an exception only if a candidate had at least two years civilian or military work experience in the telecommunications and/or automated information systems field that are comparable to one of the requisite degree fields. , Even here, Snowden in no way qualified. He did not have the education qualifications or two-year work experience anywhere. In fact, his only paid work was as a security guard at a language school at the University of Maryland, and that job lasted less than one year. Under extraordinary circumstances, even the minimum requirements might be waived if the applicant had a distinguished military career and an honorable discharge. Snowden, however, did not complete his military training at Fort Benning, Georgia and received only an administrative discharge. The CIA, to be sure, had needed computer savvy recruits to service its expanding array of computer systems since 1990. By 2006, however, there was no shortage of fully-qualified applicants for IT jobs who met the CIA’s minimum standards. Most of them had university course records, work experience at IT companies, computer science training certificates from technical schools, and other such credentials they could provide the personnel office. The CIA, like the NSA, also obtained technicians with special skills for IT jobs from outside contractors. So it had no need for employing a 22-year old drop-out who did not meet its requisites. According to the former CIA station chief, the only plausible way that Snowden, with no qualifications, was allowed to jump the queue was that “he had some pull.” In 2006, Snowden was not without family connections. His grandfather, it will be recalled was Rear Admiral Barrett, who certainly was well-connected in the intelligence world. After 20 years service in the Coast Guard, Admiral Barrett joined an interagency task force