Not surprising. If I was tasked with hiring a head of security, it would either be from government or corrections.
When I worked in Verizon Security my boss had a PHD and had worked for the CIA for 13 years. Weird dude.
BLARNEY is a parallel program to a project called PRISM, which provides NSA intelligence analysts with direct access to the servers of major Internet companies.
Those companies Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple have vehemently denied participating in PRISM, as well as having knowledge of PRISM.
ANY company that needs security, almost always hires former law enforcement people. Who else? The larger the company, the more they’ll pay, the greater the requirements. FBI, CIA, down the ladder to local officers(Chiefs, Captains, cops, etc)